


our life is not a movie (or maybe)

by emso



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Actor Kageyama, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Bickering, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Filming, M/M, Slow Burn, actor hinata, like loads of bickering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25282279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emso/pseuds/emso
Summary: Hinata Shouyou is a no-name still waiting for his Big Moment.Kageyama Tobio is a genius rising star with a steadily growing list of achievements.They met three years ago and never crossed paths again. No, they've been cast together once more, this time as love interests. Not that that'll pose any problems, of course. They just have to abide by the #1 rule of show business – what happens on set, stays on set. Straightforward enough.…Right?(or: a self-indulgent actor!au)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 110
Kudos: 161
Collections: best fanfics of any fandom





	1. Alien

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for plot elements / characters ahead, slightly beyond how far the anime's gotten I think! Work title from Okkervil River's 'Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe', which I adore with all my heart!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INT. THE HINATA / TANAKA FLAT – DAY.
> 
> SUPER: **Sometime in September, in a bustling city**
> 
>  **TANAKA (V.O.)**  
>  When you live with an actor,  
> there's really no such thing as  
> a 'quiet breakfast'. Especially  
> when that actor is a ginger  
> pipsqueak on a morning  
> caffeine high.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this entire thing is so incredibly self-indulgent it isn't even funny. the filmmaking process has been squished and pulled and twisted to my heart's content lmao so don't be mad pls ty ty. also honorifics have been dropped for convenience but first name/last name basis still maintains significance!

“You’ve got to be _kidding_ _me_.”

Pushing aside his coffee mug, Shouyou furiously flattens out the cover story of today’s entertainment section, taking a rushed photo of the entire double-spread special. It’s a little blurry, but legible enough to at least get his point across. He blindly bashes out a text to accompany the photo – _this isnt true, right???!??!?!!?_ – and sends it, waiting agitatedly for a response, still standing at his breakfast table with the spread laid out in front of him.

The reply is almost instantaneous, as though Shouyou’s outraged text didn’t come as a surprise in the least: _OK OK calm down for a second & let me explain a bit before you start yelling. _

That’s a yes, then. It’s true. Shouyou slams his phone down onto the table and glares down at the smug, technicolor face of his _sworn_ rival and (possibly one-sided, but whatever) nemesis – and, below the glossy photograph, the offending subtitle text: _20-year-old Hollywood hotshot Kageyama Tobio, previously represented by BlueCastle Management, is now signed with Karasu Talent Agency, following the company’s recent CEO handover back to the Ukai family name._ The rest of the double spread is just a fluffy biographic detailing Kageyama’s 14 years under the spotlight. As usual, the journalist doesn’t skimp on the words _genius_ and _prodigy_. Well, Shouyou grouches, taking an angry sip of his coffee, it’s not like they’re totally wrong about that. But being a genius with a bit of a pretty face and a couple of awards shouldn’t mean you get to get away with also being a stuck-up jerk.

“Yo.” Ryu shuffles out of his room and lumbers sluggishly towards the kitchen, yawning widely and rubbing sleep from his eyes as he passes the table. “Is that the paper?”

Glowering still and itching to rant, Shouyou holds up the spread and pulls it taut. “It sure is. _This_ counts as news now, apparently.”

Ryu winces and disappears into the kitchen. “Yikes. Did he win another award or something?”

“Even _better_. He dropped his old agency, and guess who’s signed him now instead?”

“Who?” Shouyou hears the fridge door open and close, and then footsteps to the pantry that stop dead in their tracks as the significance of Shouyou’s foul mood finally seems to sink into Ryu’s sleep-fogged brain. “…Wait. No way…”

“Yep,” Shouyou grinds out, “ _Karasu_. Apparently, we’re – we’re _colleagues_ now.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then, ever sensitive and tactful, Ryu dissolves into peals of decidedly unhelpful laughter. When Shouyou pointedly doesn’t join in after the first couple of seconds, Ryu very audibly makes a valiant struggle to compose himself, his laughter morphing into muffled coughing. He emerges from the kitchen with a bowl of cereal and his lips clamped together, barely containing his visible amusement. Shouyou fixes him with an insulted glare as he sits down and puts his bowl on Kageyama’s face. Reflexively, Ryu holds his hands up defensively, snickering. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you can’t see the humour in this situation at _all_.”

“Um, I _absolutely_ don’t,” Shouyou snaps, “and would it kill you to be, like, the tiniest bit more sympathetic? Hm? _Best friend_?”

“Okay, I know you’re an actor, so your blood’s made up of haemoglobin and drama molecules, or whatever,” Ryu says through a mouthful of cereal, “but don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little? I mean, I know you said the guy was a dickhead, and it’s not like I have any love to spare in my heart for pretty boys like him, but it’s not as if you have to marry him. You’re just being managed by the same agency.”

Shouyou fumes silently, willing his 9 a.m. brain to get its shit together and think of a decent response.

“And besides, doesn’t Boss Man Ukai know how much you don’t like Kageyama?” Ryu seems to think this scuffle is as good as won at this point, settling more comfortably back into his chair and glancing over the various other pages of the morning paper that Shouyou’s left scattered all over the table. “If he knows _anything_ about how hot-tempered you are, I’m pretty sure he’s going to be doing his best to avoid any unnecessary run-ins between you two.” He shrugs and reaches over to steal the rest of Shouyou’s lukewarm coffee. “I just don’t think you’ve got that much to worry about, that’s all. You’ll probably barely even end up seeing him around. Y’know?”

Shouyou makes an obligatory half-hearted attempt to rescue his coffee, but his raging’s lost its bite. The initial shock having worn off, he’s reluctantly starting to see the sense in Ryu’s words, even though in _principle_ he still feels a little betrayed by Ukai’s decision. He supposes he can make those particular grievances known later – and, judging from the hurried reply to his text earlier, Ukai knows that that’s precisely what’s coming anyway. His burning unrequited rivalry with Kageyama is definitely a poorly kept secret among both the talent and staff at Karasu – Ukai being no exception.

“Whatever,” Shouyou grumbles, kicking Ryu’s leg under the table to wipe the triumphant look off his face. “I guess maybe you’re _kind of_ right. And in the worst case scenario––”

“Daichi will take care of it?” Ryu supplies, batting his foot out of the way.

Shouyou grins a little sheepishly. “Daichi will take care of it.”

* * *

  
  
Famous last words, Shouyou thinks faintly, as he eyes the spot Daichi’s ‘saved’ for him in the middle of the bustling restaurant. The whole floor’s been booked out for their company dinner – a welcome party of sorts for their new star – and yet, out of every possible seat in the frankly massive room, the one Daichi had to choose for him was _this_ one _._

“Hurry up, Hinata!” Daichi says, waving him over. “I ordered for you already.”

Shouyou’s stomach has been slowly sinking into his intestines since he stepped foot into the restaurant, but now, as the sweater-clad figure sitting diagonally across his manager starts to straighten in his seat, its descent rapidly accelerates. He could recognise the back of that head from a mile away – he’s only seen it a _million_ times on the screen, in photographs, on red carpets, on set. Always the back of that head, moving on ahead.

The head turns around, and for a second Shouyou feels winded.

“Come say hello,” says Daichi. “It’s been a while, right?”

“Kageyama Tobio,” Shouyou splutters, Daichi’s voice barely passing through his ears. “Why are you – why are you here?”

Their table ripples with laughter, but Kageyama barely even flinches. He’s staring Shouyou down intently. “Because it’s my welcome party,” he says, matter-of-factly.

“No, I meant – I _meant_ , why are you sitting next to _my_ seat?”

“ _You’re_ the one who’s about to sit next to _me_ , not the other way around,” Kageyama returns, but he barely seems to be thinking about what he’s saying, still staring hard. Shouyou squirms under his steady gaze, until Kageyama says, seemingly out of the blue, “I know you.”

Shouyou blinks, taken aback.

“But I forgot your name,” Kageyama adds.

Suddenly irritated, Shouyou stalks towards the table, grabbing the back of his designated chair with a little too much force but not making any move to pull it out or sit down. Kageyama looks up at him, seeming slightly bemused.

“What do you mean, you _forgot my name_?” Shouyou seethes. “We did an _entire film_ together! I was the _lead_!”

“I know, obviously. The film was _One Step_ ,” Kageyama says.

“Okay, so if you remember _that_ , why can’t you remember my name?”

Kageyama raises an eyebrow at him. “Why should I?”

Something incredibly unpleasant and hotly humiliating swells up inside Shouyou’s lungs, momentarily blurring his vision. Distantly, he hears the silvery-haired man sitting beside Daichi sigh and say disapprovingly, with the tone of someone who’s said it a hundred times before, “ _Kageyama_.” Only when Shouyou feels Daichi’s familiar hand, firm on his arm, does he realise he’s reached out to grab at Kageyama’s collar.

“It’s been three years. I’ve acted in all kinds of things since then, and I’ve gotten better. _Loads_ better,” Shouyou says, his voice low, so perhaps only Kageyama will catch it. Or perhaps not. It doesn’t matter. “I’m not the same actor I was when we made that film.”

“Right,” Kageyama says, not missing a beat, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Neither am I.”

His eyes are a kind of cold grey, with that ever-consistent killer intensity, and though he would never admit it, his tone sends a shiver up Shouyou’s spine. It’s not _fear_ that he feels, precisely. Intimidation, maybe? That’s not quite it either.

Before he manages to figure it out, Ukai ( _Boss Man!_ says Ryu’s voice in his head) appears at their table, arms folded and brows furrowed. “Hinata,” he says tiredly, and Shouyou grimaces preemptively. “This is a _company dinner_. You are a _professional_. So for the love of God. Sit. Down.”

With what he’s sure is clear dissatisfaction written plainly all over his face, Shouyou lowers himself as slowly as humanly possible into his seat, shifting his chair further away from Kageyama and resolutely ignoring the _are-you-serious-right-now_ looks Daichi is throwing at him.

“Thank you, Hinata,” Ukai says, not sounding thankful in the least. “Well. I suppose introductions are in order now that Hinata’s here, though it seems most of you are – uh – acquainted – or getting acquainted – with one another in some shape or form. Kageyama, this is Hinata Shouyou, who you’ve worked with before. And this is his manager, Sawamura Daichi.”

“I apologise for him,” Daichi says dryly, and Hinata glares.

“And it seems you’ve both met Sugawara Koushi, who I believe has been Kageyama’s manager for a couple of years now. It seems we have him to thank, at least partially, for Kageyama’s decision to join us here at little old Karasu.” Ukai claps the smiley silvery-haired man on the shoulder before continuing. “We’ve also assigned Shimizu from PR to be Kageyama’s personal PR manager, just so we have someone from Karasu working directly with him as well.”

“Shimizu? _Shimizu Kiyoko_?” Hinata gapes at Ukai. “Kageyama gets Shimizu to _himself_ ? But _why_?” And because he doesn’t want to get kicked out of the company, he quickly tacks on a, “Sir?”

“Like I said, I wanted to provide Kageyama with a Karasu manager on top of Sugawara here, although I’m sure he’s more than capable. And you can still go to Takeda for PR issues at any time, Hinata.”

Their Head of PR is perfectly lovely and very diligent and _yes_ Shouyou will certainly keep going to him with PR issues, but Ukai is _missing the point here_. Shouyou bunches his hands into the tablecloth, beyond frustrated, and meets Ukai’s eyes resentfully.

“Not now, Hinata,” Ukai says, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “I need to take Kageyama to do the rounds and say hello. Can you – can’t this wait until business hours? I’m happy to explain my decision in my _office_ , okay? For now, just try to enjoy the food. You seem like you could use some carbs for that temper.”

Annoyed with the rebuke, but knowing when not to push his luck, Hinata shuts up and opts for mentally venting at the steaming bowl of rice the waitress has placed in front of him instead. Beside him, Kageyama gets to his feet, straightening his navy sweater and following Ukai to a table at the far end of the room. Shouyou commends himself for resisting the urge to trip up the guy as he walks past. What does he have to be so damn _tall_ for, anyway? As if having a face like a walking Ralph Lauren ad isn’t enough, the stupid greedy _jerkface_.

“Hinata.” He _feels_ more than sees Daichi’s eye-roll. “You’re acting like a kid, you know.”

“Yeah, it’s actually called ‘my personality’, thanks,” Shouyou grouches.

Smiley-man Sugawara laughs, and it’s a nice twinkly kind of sound that makes it considerably harder for Shouyou to stay mad. “You and Kageyama must be cut from the same cloth, then. The conversation that just happened was a mature one by his standards.”

“It must be an actor thing,” Daichi huffs, pushing a bowl of tempura prawns closer to Shouyou. “You – eat this. And Sugawara – is it true that you talked Kageyama into switching over to Karasu?”

Sugawara shakes his head, smiling. “I really can’t take the credit for that. Kageyama was thinking of leaving BlueCastle once his contract ended, anyway. I just mentioned in passing that I’d heard Ukai was taking over the CEO-ship from his father’s in-laws, and apparently it just provided a bit of a catalyst.”

“I’m sure it was welcome news to Ukai,” Daichi muses. “We’ve shrunk a bit since the last Ukai retired. The in-laws were totally pleasant, but you could tell their hearts weren’t in it.”

A raucous laugh from overhead, and then Shouyou yelps as he’s engulfed by a heavy weight from behind. “Whoa, are we bitching about the ex-CEO? Can we join? Oy, Chikara, you come over here too.”

“Hello to you too, Noya,” Shouyou says, muffled, through the fabric of Nishinoya’s sleeves around his face.

“Hey, Shouyou, I saw you talking to our new star earlier,” Nishinoya sniggers, finally releasing him from what was more of a wrestling hold than a hug. “I thought you guys had beef or something.”

“We have a _rivalry_ ,” Shouyou corrects.

“You do not have a _rivalry_ , Hinata, he couldn’t even remember your name,” Daichi says, eliciting another bout of guffaws from Nishinoya and indignant splutters from Shouyou. “Honestly. You two are colleagues now, aren’t you? Maybe I could entertain it before, but I’d be a pretty bad manager if I let you continue acting like Kageyama’s responsible for the end of the world.”

Sugawara tilts his head to one side, the conversation clearly eluding him. “Wait – sorry – am I missing something? I know Kageyama can be a bit – hard to get along with, but… didn’t you say you’ve only filmed with him once? How can you be feuding with him so – uh – intensely?”

How can he, indeed? He’s sure it looks silly to an outsider. Maybe it even looks like nothing more than mindless envy of another actor his age who’s far more successful and famous than he is, or probably ever will be. And – yeah, maybe a teeny, tiny part of it is envy. But there are countless actors out there who are far better than him, better in leaps and bounds, and he’s never had a problem with them. Hell, Noya is one of his closest friends. Shouyou’s not a jealous person by nature, exactly. He likes to watch good acting – whether it’s his or not. But Kageyama…

_What have you even been doing all this time?_

His fingers tighten around his chopsticks.

“Didn’t Kageyama totally steal the show in that movie where it was supposed to be Shouyou's big debut in a lead role?” Nishinoya cackles, punching him in the arm. “It’s okay, Shouyou, he’s been acting since he was, like, eight. And apparently he’s a genius or something. We can’t all be geniuses.”

“Is that meant to make me feel better?!”

“My point is,” Nishinoya steamrolls on, as Daichi and Sugawara look on, seeming half-aghast and half-amazed, “you’ve gotten really good since that movie. You don’t have to be a genius to be really, really _good_. And now you can show Kageyama once and for all, from right in front of him, how good you’ve gotten. Right?”

Shouyou’s not quite sure what he’s supposed to say to that. Nishinoya always _has_ had a way with rendering him speechless when no one else can – maybe that’s why Daichi never stops the trainwrecks that are the openings of his pep talks. Either way, he has the attention of the entire table, whether he intended it or not.

Nishinoya grins at their silence and points right at Shouyou’s nose. “The best way to make a point to your rival is to face them head on.”

As Nishinoya preens under Sugawara’s impressed applause, Shouyou glances over to the other side of the room, where Kageyama is being dragged over to the PR table by Ukai. Face Kageyama head on, huh? It sounds easy enough, except for the fact that even now, watching Kageyama as he bows a little stiffly to greet Takeda, Shouyou finds that he’s still only looking at the back of his head.

* * *

9 a.m. on Monday, Shouyou finds himself at the door to Ukai’s office, having been summoned by an ominous-sounding text the night before. It’s not unusual for them to chat in his office – they’ve been doing it since long before Ukai decided that maybe he _did_ want to be CEO after all – but Shouyou has the sense that today’s chat might be a little different from their usual.

He knocks, and then heads in. Ukai is sitting at his desk, surrounded by manila folders and biscuits as usual, but looks up and smiles a little wearily when he sees Shouyou come in. “Hinata. Thanks for coming so early.”

“I would’ve been up anyway,” Shouyou says. “Uh – is everything… good?”

“I promised I’d explain my decision,” Ukai shrugs. “I’m a man of my word. I know you’re about to say I don’t have to,” he adds, when he notices Shouyou about to protest, “but I want to. We’ve been pretty open in the past, and I don’t see why that has to end just because I have a slightly different title now.”

Shouyou doesn’t interrupt. Ukai gestures for him to sit, and he does, taking a biscuit while he’s at it.

“Yeah, sure, help yourself,” Ukai says, amused.

“I know, I am,” Shouyou returns innocently.

Ukai laughs, and some of the exhaustion seems to dissipate from the tense line of his shoulders. “Look – Hinata. I wouldn’t do anything with the intention of aggravating you for no good reason. I genuinely think Kageyama coming on board will be good for you. For all of you, really. You know better than anyone my uncle-in-law didn’t do much for Karasu, and we lost a lot of talent after granddad left. I inherited something… completely different to what my dad would have.” He sighs, pinching at the bridge of his nose and massaging it. “You want to know what I honestly think? This whole Kageyama thing was a stroke of luck. People are paying attention to us again, when they wouldn’t have batted an eye our way this time last year.”

He’s never been the business-minded type, but Shouyou has to admit he can see the logic in what Ukai’s trying to say. Hell, he himself found out about all this from the coveted massive, glossy double-page spread in the entertainment section of the paper. He _gets_ that. He gets it, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a much easier pill to swallow. All of a sudden, he’s been seized by the desperate desire to have been the one who was Karasu’s stroke of luck, who could’ve taken some of the weight off Ukai’s back, who brought eyes back to the company and offers back to his colleagues.

“And if you don’t believe me,” Ukai is saying, when he zones back in. “Look what I have for you.”

He picks up one of the manila folders and hands it over. Curious, Shouyou takes it, peering inside. It’s full of paper. That much was obvious. But then he spies that warmly familiar font – the crisp lines of 12-point Courier – and feels his heart skip a beat.

“I’ll be sending you a digital copy of everything via Daichi later too, but I wanted to give you the paper copy myself.” Ukai finally lets a grin spread across his face, as if he’d been holding it back so as not to spoil the surprise. “An audition. A big one. I think you’re really gonna like it.”

Wide-eyed, Shouyou looks back up, folder clutched close to his chest. He’s not been out of work for the past three years, exactly, more like – unable to find some sort of breakthrough. Odd roles here and there, some ad work, supporting characters mostly. Like that role with Kageyama was a splash of cold water on firewood, and he’s been waiting and waiting all this time for it to dry out so he can try to light it again.

The folder feels warm against his hands.

Ukai stands up, reaches over, ruffles his hair fondly. “Go home, take a look at it and tell me what you think. Okay? I’ll tell Daichi to send the email through now.”

Shouyou nods a little numbly, getting to his feet. His legs feel kind of quivery. He won’t be able to wait till he gets home – he’ll probably read it all on the bus. And then he’ll go home and read it again. And then Daichi will send the PDF version and he’ll read that whole thing, too. He feels _excited_ , in a way he hasn’t in a really, really long time.

As he’s making his way out of the office, Ukai calls out to him from his desk one more time. Shouyou turns around, startled, one hand on the door handle still. Ukai seems to scrutinise him for a moment, and then nods as though confirming something to himself.

“I don’t want to psych you out or anything, because I know you get over-excited as it is,” he says slowly, “but this role – I think it might’ve been made for you.”

Shouyou stares at him. When did he last hear someone say something like that to him?

Oh!

That might’ve been the first time, actually.

A high-frequency thrill rushes through him. He can barely wait another moment. Swinging the door open, Shouyou steps out into the hallway, briefly turning to bow as he leaves. “I won’t let you down,” he hears himself say quietly.

And as the door closes behind him, Ukai’s unhesitating voice: “Hinata. You never have.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> am i in denial that hq is ending in less than a week?
> 
> why yes, yes i am
> 
> am i using the recent chapters as an excuse to go down a spiral of imagining everyone in hq as adults with Professions™?
> 
> yes again
> 
> am i at all involved in the filmmaking / acting business, or do i at least have more than a kernel of an idea re: wtf i am writing about, meaning this work is factually and contextually accurate?
> 
> not in the least. commit to reading this work at your own risk xoxo


	2. Frozen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXT. KARASU TALENT AGENCY – DAY.
> 
> _FANS are gathered outside the entrance to a once-renowned talent agency. A sleek car pulls up as HINATA and NISHINOYA watch._
> 
> **NISHINOYA**  
>  Is it just me, or is it weirdly crowded out here today?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm emo about ch 402 so i smashed this one out. sorry for any errors + incredibly inaccurate audition processes in advance!

_“So? Are you going to do it? You will, right?”_

Shouyou grins at Daichi’s excited voice, eyeing the script in his hands again. “As if I’d give up an opportunity like _this_.”

Daichi whoops on the other end. _“It’s good, isn’t it?”_

“Super good. I’m really keen about this one.”

The screenplay’s written by Udai Tenma, so honestly the quality is of no huge surprise. But it’s an interesting concept, he thinks. The film follows the unreliable narration of a disillusioned and increasingly detached college volleyball star who gets a visit from a sunny Fine Arts student who wants to use him for figure drawing practice. Over time Volleyball Star falls for Art Student in what seems like nothing more than a nice meet-cute, but Volleyball Star’s teammates – for some reason – seem concerned by the development.

Then one of Art Student’s upperclassmen starts tagging along to figure drawing sessions, kind of ominously hovering, until he out of the blue confronts Volleyball Star about a mysterious ex. It’s revealed that Volleyball’s ex, who uncannily mirrors Art Student, disappeared from Volleyball’s life about a year ago and Upperclassman knows exactly what happened. He warns Volleyball against dragging someone down with him again, making Volleyball spiral into an increasingly toxic thought process, until Art Student mentions in passing that it was Upperclassman who suggested he ask Volleyball to model for his drawing in the first place. Turns out Upperclassman, who’s been in love with Volleyball’s ex since ages and ages ago, sent the oblivious Art Student as a trap of sorts to drive Volleyball into self-destruction.

So – a tricky film, written by Udai Tenma and directed by Kozume Kenma, who’s also a growing name in the industry – and Shouyou somehow, somehow has an audition lined up for a _massive_ role. The tough part, of course, will be getting it. Through the haze of his excitement, sitting stubbornly at the back of Shouyou’s mind, is the knowledge that this film is being made by names that actors far better than him _love_ working with, and it’ll honestly be a bit of a miracle if he even gets a callback, let alone actually cast for the role.

“I was thinking of asking Noya to help me with the video audition,” he says, pushing the thought firmly aside for now. He’s never been one to back down from a challenge and he sure as hell isn’t about to start now.

 _“Good idea. I’m happy to come by when you’re ready to film it.”_ A brief pause, and then Daichi adds, _“Are you scared of doing such a big audition for the first time in a while?”_

Shouyou shakes his head furiously, before realising Daichi can’t see it. “No. I know it’ll be competitive but – seriously – what do I have to lose? If I can’t go all out in the face of grim odds, then I’m not Hinata Shouyou.”

Daichi laughs at that and makes a sound of agreement. It’s not a lie – Shouyou knows what he’s feeling right now isn’t exactly _fear_ – but there is definitely something that feels a lot like electricity buzzing through his nerves right now. It’s been there since he was handed the manila folder, but it’s intensified throughout the multiple times he’s actually read through the thing, and it’s there even after Daichi hangs up, this constant hum of energy pulsing through him and making him even antsier than usual. Maybe it’s something to do with what Ukai said. _This role – I think it might’ve been made for you._ It sounded so hyperbolic at the time that Shouyou had avoided letting himself obsessing over it on the way home, but since reading the script, he almost thinks he might understand what Ukai had been talking about. In his mental readthrough, the words come naturally, the feelings organically, just the way he most loves to experience acting. Something just _fits_.

At that very moment Ryu bursts through the front door, panting, apparently having run from the bus stop. He’s holding plastic bags full of what looks like enough takeout to feed half the Karasu staff. His eyes find Shouyou sitting with his feet on top of the dinner table, the manila folder in his lap, the script in his hands. A wide grin splits across his face. “Is that it?”

Shouyou grins back and holds the script out for Ryu to snatch out of his hands. “This is it.”

“Is it any good?”

“Very.” He watches Ryu flick through the script, eyes flitting down the pages rapidly.

“And the role?” Ryu puts the bags down on the table and sits down to start reading in earnest. Shouyou reaches over to start helping himself to Congratulatory Takeout, his good spirits multiplied by Ryu’s genuine enthusiasm. He’d sent a text full of typos and exclamation marks telling his roommate the good news on his way home, and Ryu, never one to half-ass a response to anything, had declared he’d be bringing a ‘shitload of takeout’ on his way home from class. (He’s clearly delivered to that end.)

“Why don’t you read it and tell me what you think?” Shouyou says, popping a piece of chicken karaage as mysteriously as possible into his mouth, even though he already knows what the answer will be. “I’m auditioning to play the Fine Arts student.”

* * *

Nishinoya promptly comes over the next day, bearing doughnuts for them all (“brain food,” he says, dead seriously) and his poor manager in tow (“no, no, Chikara _wanted_ to come! Look at the _passion_ in his eyes!”). He and Ryu have some stupidly long secret handshake they’ve developed over his many visits to their place, so Shouyou waits for them to get through that, and then they all sit around the table with doughnuts in hand and Shouyou’s script. They do their first run-through of the audition scene just like that, Nishinoya reading from the script, Shouyou reciting, Ryu and Chikara watching, evidently fascinated. When they’re done, they’re met by several beats of heavy silence.

And then Ryu says, “Damn.”

“How good was _that_?” Nishinoya says gleefully, grabbing Ennoshita’s shoulders and shaking him violently back and forth. “Tell me you don’t think Shouyou's got this in the bag. He’s got big dreams of rubbing it in Kageyama’s face with this one.”

Ennoshita swats him aside and nods in Shouyou’s direction. “This role really suits you, I think. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but – it just kind of works.”

“Is this gonna be your big break, Shouyou?” Ryu crows, his mouth full of doughnut. “Are you moving out into a twelve-bedroom mansion? Can I have one of the bedrooms?”

“If he wants it to be his big break, he’s going to have to get his audition in,” Ennoshita says. “Didn’t you say you’re meeting Sawamura at Karasu later to help Hinata film this thing, Noya? And _stop eating the doughnuts_ , we didn’t bring them for _you_!”

“Fine, fine! _Mum_ ,” Nishinoya sulks, pushing the box of doughnuts away and picking up the script again with a flourish. “And yeah, we’re heading over in the afternoon. But we’ve got _loads_ of time, don’t worry.”

Or so they could’ve _sworn_ , but the hours pass by frighteningly quickly, rehearsal punctuated more often than not by ‘breaks’ that go on longer than the practice sessions themselves, a massive Uber Eats order, and a sudden arm-wrestling Round Robin. It’s only when Daichi calls Shouyou to remind them to leave his flat to get there on time that they realise the afternoon’s crept up on them. Ennoshita drives them to Karasu (with Ryu waving them off from the verandah), slowing to a stop at the drop-off zone for them to get out first.

“Is it just me, or is it weirdly crowded out here today?” Nishinoya remarks, as Ennoshita drives off to park.

Shouyou had noticed it too as they’d approached – their usually relatively quiet drop-off zone, leading straight to the front entrance of the Karasu building, is today spotted with people who clearly aren’t employees just sort of hovering around. He frowns in confusion as they walk together towards the doors. “Are they looking for someone? At Karasu?”

As the words leave his mouth, though, realisation dawns on him and his frown deepens into a fully-fledged scowl. And speak of the devil – right on cue, one of their company cars slides to a stop at the drop-off zone and their new resident celebrity steps out in a spotless creamy knit and sunglasses. Shimizu is with him, talking rapidly with a tablet in her hand as they walk together towards the entrance where Shouyou and Nishinoya are currently standing.

“Um, excuse me?”

Jumping at the sudden tap on his shoulder, Shouyou turns to see a pretty girl, maybe around his age, looking at him nervously. Flustered, he pats down his hair self-consciously, hoping it’s behaving itself a little better than usual. “Y-yes! What can I, um, what can I do for you?”

She holds out her phone to him cautiously. “I was just wondering whether… well, I’d really like a photo, but…” She hesitates and quickly glances around them, seemingly embarrassed.

Shouyou takes the phone triumphantly. _There, Kageyama, see? You’re not the only relevant actor around here!_ He clears his throat loudly, hoping Kageyama’s within earshot. “A photo? Of course!”

“Oh, thanks _so_ much!” she gushes. “I’ll go try and grab him, wait _right_ here.”

“No need to thank me, I – wait, what?” The grin falls from Shouyou’s face as he watches the girl dash off. “Grab – _huh_?”

As he whirls around to face Nishinoya in bewilderment, he realises his friend’s nearly bent double, cackling with laughter. “She wants a photo with _Kageyama_ , you dolt! Holy crap, I’m really feeling the secondhand embarrassment right now.”

Shouyou feels a flush rise up his neck and he quickly looks back over to see the girl approaching Kageyama shyly. Kageyama barely even pauses his fast-paced walk towards the door, and the girl backs off, visibly crestfallen. Shimizu swoops in to do damage control immediately, giving the girl a warm smile and probably some bullshit about Kageyama being late for a meeting. 

Nishinoya lets out a low whistle. “Damn, that was cold! He’s _cold_.” He falls into step with Kageyama, dragging Shouyou with him by the arm, so the three of them walk in tandem through the automatic doors and into the warmth of the Karasu lobby. “Hey there, Elsa.”

When Kageyama doesn’t respond, Nishinoya gives him a loud smack across the back. “Oy, you might be a genius but I’m still your senior at Karasu, you know!”

Kageyama stumbles, but quickly rights himself. Shouyou doesn’t bother holding in his snicker. As soon as he’s regained his balance Kageyama whips around to face them both, snatching the sunglasses off his face to reveal alarmed grey eyes. When it apparently registers that he’s facing Nishinoya, his eyes widen even more, and he hurriedly reaches up to pull something out of his ears – AirPods.

“Sorry, I didn’t notice you there,” he says quickly, bowing his head. “Morning.”

“Jesus, how loud is your music?” Nishinoya grins. “Don’t tell me you just couldn’t hear that fan back there, or something.”

Kageyama blinks. “…Fan? What fan? Back where?”

Shouyou chokes on his own saliva from inhaling too quickly, while Nishinoya breaks down into loud guffaws for what feels like the millionth time that day. “Oh my God! He really didn’t hear her! This dude…”

“Make your music quieter, you jerk,” Shouyou snaps at Kageyama. “Or if you’re gonna blast it and kill your ears, at least _see_ better.”

The taller man only now seems to notice his presence and throws him a withering glare. “And how should I do that? Turn up the brightness on my sunglasses? Idiot. And I wasn’t listening to music.”

“Then what were you even listening to that loudly?”

Kageyama shoves his hands into his pockets and resumes his walk towards the lifts. “A recording of myself rehearsing some lines. I was reviewing it.”

Nishinoya hums thoughtfully and follows him. “I know your type.” He’s practically bouncing on his feet, clearly fascinated by Kageyama. “You get, like, tunnel vision when you’re really focussed on your work, right? But you’ve gotta be nicer to your fans, dude! It _is_ your livelihood.”

Kageyama seems genuinely puzzled by this, if his expression is anything to go by. He’s now tucked his sunglasses into the collar of his sweater and it dangles there a little precariously as he leans forward to press the _up_ button. “But you don’t have to be _nice_ , you just have to be really good.” The lift doors open almost instantly and the three of them troop in. Shouyou and Nishinoya are headed to the third floor, Kageyama to the eighth – probably for a meeting with Ukai, Shouyou thinks. He wonders, a little jealously, what they’ll be discussing.

“ _Man_ , you geniuses are so annoying,” Nishinoya comments, almost delightedly.

“Why are you saying that like you’re not extremely talented yourself?” Kageyama responds, brows furrowing. “You’re one of Karasu’s best right now.”

It’s supremely irritating how Kageyama’s talking to Nishinoya as if Shouyou’s totally invisible. He fights the urge to yell _I’m here too_ , knowing deep down, even though it twists his gut to admit it, that he’s nowhere near their level right now. He’s not a part of this conversation – yet.

The lift doors open on the third floor. Shouyou and Nishinoya step out. As they walk away to meet Daichi in one of the rehearsal rooms, Shouyou glances back at Kageyama just once. He’s startled when their eyes meet briefly, before the lift doors slide to a shut between them, leaving Kageyama alone in the lift as he makes his way all the way up to the top.

His little moment is interrupted by Nishinoya’s cheery hello at Daichi, who it seems has been waiting for them. Shouyou shakes his head to clear it of any leftover thoughts of Kageyama. The genius actor’s not going to be sparing _him_ any brain space, so he won’t either. He has bigger fish to fry, anyway.

“Okay, bigshot,” Daichi says, waving his copy of the script in Shouyou’s face, “ready to try recording?”

* * *

It’s late September when Shouyou gets the news of his callback, and it’s straight back to work rehearsing. Nishinoya’s busy, so he does most of his practice with Daichi. He doesn’t mind – that’s how they’ve done it for ages, and there’s an easy kind of comfort about practising with his manager. Daichi’s really good at giving feedback, too. Ukai pops in to watch sometimes, standing by the door with his arms crossed, scrutinising and jumping in with his own thoughts once in a while. Shouyou always gets a little nervous before live auditions – _especially_ callbacks, _especially_ big ones like this – so most of the rehearsal process is about ingraining the lines and movements into his system until they’re practically muscle memory.

The callback is on a Thursday. Ryu makes him breakfast before running off to class, though Shouyou can barely swallow it down, his throat feeling sandpapery all of a sudden. What if he’s sick? Should he have a cough lolly? He has one just in case, and only realises after he’s finished it that it was a year past the best before date. A _year_. Will he die?!

“No, you will not die,” Daichi says calmly, when he comes to pick Shouyou up only to find him curled up in the doorway, fearing for his life. “Get in the car.”

So he gets in the car. The bacon grease from this morning and the melted-up cough lolly feel like they’re roiling in his stomach uncomfortably. He must look green, because Daichi reaches swiftly into the glovebox and tosses a sickbag at him just moments before he pukes up Ryu’s breakfast spectacularly. Afterwards, he sinks back into the seat, utterly exhausted.

“I feel like I just threw up my heart,” he mumbles.

“Good,” Daichi says, without missing a beat. “Then there’s nothing to make you feel nervous.”

They arrive early and practise in the car. Then they check in with the casting assistants and practise in the waiting room. Shouyou’s stomach eventually settles, though the nausea’s replaced by a gnawing emptiness now that breakfast is all gone. He eats a protein bar from Daichi’s bag to quell it a little, and then, even though it feels like no time’s passed at all, it’s somehow been an hour since they arrived and he’s being called into his audition.

“Breathe,” Daichi tells him, and Shouyou nods firmly. His palms were sweating like mad before, but now they’re suddenly completely dry. He can barely feel the pressure of the ground against his feet as he walks behind the assistant. She leads him to a door that has a sign stuck on it reading _QUIET PLEASE_ and instructs him to go in whenever he’s ready. Is he ready? His breathing speeds up. _Am I ready?_

“Hello,” Shouyou says, pushing open the door and stepping inside with a bow. “I’m Hinata Shouyou, auditioning for Amemiya Hiroki. Thank you for this opportunity!”

He takes a moment to scan the casting table as he hands them his headshot, and nearly double takes as he realises how many of the film’s big names are amongst them. The film’s producer, Kuroo Tetsuro, is sipping on what looks like a Starbucks cold brew right at the middle of the table, with the screenplay writer Udai Tenma sat in a massive hoodie to his right – and directly to Kuroo's left is none other than Kozume Kenma.

Kuroo must have noticed his stare, because he gives Shouyou a knowing smirk as he puts down his cold brew. “Kenma always insists on doing all the auditions himself. _Artistic direction_ , or something.”

“Oh! Um – I wasn’t—” Shouyou stammers, backing away from the table. He’s suddenly hyper-aware of all the cameras pointed at him. He feels like a total rookie. “I mean, I was just—”

“Stop spooking the actors, Kuroo,” Kozume says, so quietly Shouyou almost misses it. “Ignore him, please. He just thinks he’s really funny.”

“Oh! Um. Okay.”

“Can you start with the page 15 scene, please?” Kozume says. “Kuroo will be reading for you.”

The _producer_? Is this part of Kozume’s ‘artistic direction’? Not that Shouyou’s about to question anything. “Sure,” he says quickly. “Just give me a second.”

“No hurry.”

This is his character’s first meeting with Volleyball Star – Kaneko Aito, that is. The _fateful_ first meeting. It’s important for him to do one thing here – absolutely epitomise all the lovely, sweet, soft things Kaneko most takes notice of. He shuts his eyes a moment, letting the room melt away, letting the walls of a gymnasium take their place. Letting his heart double in size. Letting his mind soften.

He opens his eyes. Smiles.

“I hope I’m not disturbing your practice,” he says. He avoids looking over at Kozume, though he feels the director’s eyes almost piercing through his skull, and instead makes eye contact only with Kuroo.

Kuroo lifts an eyebrow, but reads the line smoothly. “Instead of ‘hoping’, you could just not,” he says.

Unsurprisingly, it’s not quite how Shouyou imagined Kaneko would sound. Kuroo’s unexpectedly expressive, but is almost too spunky. It feels like it’ll be easy to get swept up in his gravitas. He has to _focus_. He is _Amemiya_. 

He laughs softly. “I guess I can’t argue with that. What if I promise that I’ll blend into the background?”

“What are you—” This is where Kaneko would turn around, look at him properly for the first time. The words would die in his throat.

“I’m Amemiya,” Shouyou says. “Amemiya Hiroki. You’re Kaneko Aito.”

Silence. He lets the smile broaden on his face, and warmth fill his eyes.

“Kaneko,” he says, “can I draw you?”

A collective breath is released by the room, Shouyou included. It’s a deceptively simple scene – over in a moment – but it’s a hugely significant one that takes more control than someone watching it might think. Shouyou’s body feels lightweight, like gravity is only half acting on it. Udai is leaning forward slightly with his chin now resting in his hands. Shouyou glances then at Kozume. The director has intense, eerily cat-like eyes turned on him, almost glowing. He speaks without looking away from Shouyou. “Get Oikawa.”

An assistant dashes out of the room while Shouyou tries to figure out what’s happening. “Erm,” he stammers. “Should I – should I leave, or—” He still has the other two scenes they asked him to prepare, and it’s rare to toss someone out of a callback after one reading, but if they’re fetching someone else…

“Stay right where you are,” Kozume says. His quietness is belied by the commanding tone underlying it ever so subtly. “I want you to do a screen test with one of the actors we’ve already cast. Have you ever worked with Oikawa Tooru?”

Wait, so by ‘Oikawa’ they meant _that_ Oikawa? Have they cast him as Kaneko? And he’s _here_? And on his way to do a screen test with him right this second, no less? Shouyou gapes at Kozume, wondering whether he’s misheard.

Before he has a chance to clarify, the assistant bursts through the door, breathing a little heavily. Shouyou whirls around at the sound and is – there’s really no better word for it – stupefied to see that she really has _the_ Oikawa Tooru in tow. Despite the fact that the assistant looks out of breath, apparently from having run to fetch him, Oikawa doesn’t have a single hair out of place. He’s taller than he looks in his pictures, broad-shouldered, _extremely_ handsome, and, Shouyou realises in a bit of a daze, looks so incredibly at ease it's a little overwhelming.

“You called?” he says, sauntering to stand in front of the casting table.

“Can we get you to do a screen test with Hinata?” Kozume says. “The gym confrontation scene with you and Amemiya and Kaneko.”

 _You and Amemiya and Kaneko…_ so he’s not been cast as Kaneko, then. He said ‘the gym _confrontation_ scene’, which leaves only one obvious option. And really, Shouyou should’ve guessed from the get-go – it’s a perfect casting choice. Oikawa must be playing Amemiya’s upperclassman, the older Arts student who sends him straight into Kaneko’s life to prompt the volleyball player’s spiral into self-conflict and ultimate breakdown: Masaki.

“Got it,” Oikawa is saying. He turns to give Shouyou a neat little bow. “I’m Oikawa Tooru. Hinata, right? Nice to meet you.” As if he even needs to introduce himself.

Shouyou nods, returning the bow. He can’t believe he’s standing so close to Oikawa. The number of fangirls who’d _kill_ to be in his shoes right now… “Nice to meet you, too.”

“Are you both ready?” Kuroo chimes in. “We’ll start with Oikawa’s line.”

Shouyou would prefer a second to settle back into character, but Oikawa seems ready to go, and there’s no way he has the courage to pipe up and hold them all back. Ah, well. He can get himself into the groove while Oikawa does his first line.

“I’m his upperclassman.” Oikawa’s voice cuts cleanly through the quietness of the room with no warning. Shouyou starts slightly, repressing the instinct to stare, instead looking straight at Kuroo – no, at _Kaneko_ – while Oikawa continues speaking. “Masaki Rui.”

“I didn’t ask you for your name,” Kuroo reads. “I asked you why you were here.”

“Aito,” Shouyou cuts in, an apprehensive edge to his voice. “Don’t.”

“What? I’m just asking why he’s crashing my practice.”

Oikawa laughs, and it’s at once a mellow and sinister sound. “So I guess it’s only okay when Amemiya does it?” He steps closer to Shouyou and props an arm on his shoulder, lounging. “What makes him so _special_ , I wonder?”

Shouyou glances at him uncertainly, and then in Kuroo’s direction. “…Masaki? Is something – is something wrong?”

“Nothing at all,” Oikawa says. He maintains his leisurely stance, though his voice is decidedly frigid. “Just wanted to come see why my precious underclassman waxes so lyrical about his _study reference_.”

Kuroo launches straight into the next line. His pacing of the scene constantly verges on overwhelming, like he almost wants to throw it off-balance, but never crossing that line. “It’s too much of a distraction to have both of you. I’d prefer if you left.”

“Man, this is why I prefer references that can’t talk back!” Oikawa chuckles. Shouyou stares at him, bemusement all over his face, his body language screaming _tense_. Oikawa drops his arm from Shouyou’s shoulder and steps away. “Fine, fine. I’ll be off. Be a good model, Mr Volleyball, okay? Don’t make Amemiya _drop out_ of uni. He’s such a fun underclassman.” His lip curling, decidedly unkind, he backs off completely and walks off. Shouyou watches him leave, looks frantically back and forth between him and Kuroo.

“Aito,” he says sharply, “what was that about?”

A brief pause, and then polite applause from all the staff. Oikawa returns to Shouyou’s side, and the appraising look he gives him is noticeably different than before. Kuroo is sitting back in his chair, toying with his straw, a thoughtful expression on his face. Tenma has his head bent and is scribbling something on a notepad. And Kozume – that same intense look still burns on his face, as if there’s something far more fiery and expressive simmering just below the surface, being barely contained. His eyes glint as he stares straight at Shouyou. Shouyou feels a shiver rush down his spine.

“Okay,” Kozume says, his voice giving away nothing. “Let’s do another one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more kagehina interactions coming soon i PROMISE !! just didn't want to rush the groundwork - all the people surrounding tobio/shouyou are pretty important so i didn't want to be lazy with them. rome wasn't built in a day hey !


	3. The Force Awakens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INT. KUROO TETSUROU'S HOME - DAY
> 
> _KUROO stands at the head of the table. He is tall, charismatic, commanding. He claps twice._
> 
> **KUROO**  
>  I know you're all busy people.  
> Why don't we get straight to  
> introductions?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for the lovely comments! they've been SUCH a good motivator - i didn't expect to finish this chapter so quickly but your comments egged me on in the best way possible ♥ we finally get a cheeky pov change, because who doesn't love being in tobio's brain?

Tobio’s lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening to his lines again at full volume when his ringtone blasts through his AirPods. Wincing, he turns the volume down hastily before picking up, still flat on his back. “Hello?”

_“Hey, Kageyama. Hope I didn’t catch you in the middle of something?”_

“No, I was just practising.” He studies a tiny mark on the ceiling. It looks like a scuff mark. How did that even get up there? “How’re you, Suga?”

 _“Really well, and you will be too once you hear this.”_ He can practically hear the smile in Suga’s voice. His manager tends to get more excited about Tobio’s roles than Tobio himself does – it’s been that way ever since they started working together a couple of years ago. It’s kind of nice, though. No one’s immune to the feeling of having a private cheer squad. _“They’ve finalised the cast.”_

Tobio sits up too quickly and shuts his eyes briefly as his head spins. “Wait, for _A View from the Top_?”

_“Yep. Can you come into the office today? I have some info about the table read for you.”_

“I mean, I don’t mind,” Tobio says, because he really doesn’t – not if it’s for work, never when it’s for work. “but don’t we usually do this over the phone?”

 _“Well.”_ Suga pauses, as though choosing his next words carefully. _“It’ll just be quicker if we can tell you both at once.”_

Tobio frowns, playing back the words in his head. He swings himself off the bed and gets to his feet. “Tell us both… ‘both’? Who’s ‘both’?”

_“I’m picking you up in ten. Be ready!”_

“Wait, Suga, don’t—” The tone rings on the other side as his manager hangs up without warning, and Tobio stuffs his phone into his pocket, annoyed and confused. Who else would need to be at this meeting? Is Suga talking about Shimizu? But what’s the point of leaving him in suspense, then? Huffing, Tobio pulls on a nondescript grey hoodie and picks up his copy of the script on his way out of his bedroom. It’s outwardly still immaculate, but its pages are already covered in pencil markings. They’d be barely legible or comprehensible to anyone else – they’re not the neat, analytical notes that he knows people like Oikawa take, after all. They’re written practically in code, in words and feelings he only understands intuitively. Well. They’re not supposed to be ‘explainable’, anyway. They just have to make sense to _him_.

He meets Suga outside ten minutes later, the question already halfway out of his lips as he opens the car door and gets in. “Who’s coming?”

Suga just waggles his eyebrows at him gleefully. “Man, you know, people might call me a sadist, but I really love this kind of stuff.”

“ _What_ kind of stuff?!”

“Fate. Destiny,” Suga says dramatically, pulling out onto the main road. He flashes Tobio a cheeky grin. “And all that jazz.”

Tobio eyes him flatly. “You’re not making _any_ sense.”

“Patience is virtue, Kageyama.”

For the entirety of the drive to Karasu, Tobio’s unable to extract even a kernel of useful information from his manager, and eventually resigns himself to sitting silently and reading furiously over his lines instead. They make their way up from the carpark together, Suga humming mirthfully along to the tinny elevator music while Tobio continues to shoot him dirty looks. They get off on the seventh floor and Suga leads him to one of the breakout meeting rooms. Despite himself, Tobio feels his heart start speeding up as they approach, oddly nervous, like his body knows something his brain doesn’t yet.

“Alright, in you go,” Suga says cheerily, swinging the door open.

Tobio steps inside, and then stops dead in his tracks.

“What,” he manages to say.

The two people already sitting at the meeting desk look up at the sound of his voice. Sawamura gives him a sort of pained smile. And across from him, none other than Hinata Shouyou leaps to his feet in a ginger blur, pointing accusingly at him, eyes wide. _“You!”_

“That should be _my_ line,” Tobio retorts.

“Now, now, play nice,” Suga says from behind him, pushing him towards the meeting table and forcing him to sit down next to Hinata. Sawamura has also successfully wrestled Hinata back into his chair and the two of them now sit side-by-side, seething silently, glaring at their respective managers.

Sawamura’s looking at him, seeming somewhat surprised. “You know, I knew Hinata’d be like this, but I didn’t expect _you_ to be so worked up as well, Kageyama,” he remarks.

“I don’t really know what’s going on, but I don’t like this guy,” Tobio says stoutly.

Suga sighs. “And why on Earth not, Kageyama?”

“Because he’s dumb.”

“ _You’re_ dumber!” Hinata explodes beside him, lunging at him. Both managers leap to their feet and swiftly pull the two of them apart, and Kageyama settles back into his seat, chest heaving. 

“And more importantly,” he bites out, “he’s bad. He sucks at acting.”

Okay, so it’s not _totally_ true. But it’s truer than not – as long as what he saw of Hinata three years ago still stands. Although he really had forgotten the actor’s name, Tobio remembers everything else about their shoot together with aching vividness. He remembers being introduced to the no-name who’d be playing the lead. He remembers their first scene together, the raw intensity of that no-name that left him winded momentarily, and the way that intensity was wielded so uncontrollably, indiscriminately, sparking and skidding all over the scene and spinning it into chaos. Unruly. Wild. This total butchering of a natural effervescence most acting hopefuls could only ever dream of – before he realised what was happening, something snapped, deep inside Tobio, and he was grabbing Hinata by the shoulders, shaking him, yelling in his face.

“What have you even been _doing_ all this time?”

He remembers, too, the way Hinata recoiled as though slapped. And how after that moment, all of their scenes together felt sort of – dead, like the effervescence was gone, or at least _stifled_. Only on Hinata’s end, of course. Tobio still gave as flawless a performance as ever. In fact, he even remembers reading all the reviews of the film later. How they showered him with praise. How they claimed that he stole the show, that Hinata was the lead in name only, that they expected nothing less from a prodigy. That he was _made_ for acting. And he remembers the way that inexplicably angered him: because he wasn’t the only one in that film who was clearly made for acting. The difference was that one of them hadn’t wasted it.

He turns to Hinata now. “I haven’t even seen you in anything noteworthy since _One Step_.”

Hinata glowers at him, but doesn’t leave his seat this time, at least. “I told you. I’ve been doing all sorts of things. Things that _kings_ like you would probably turn their nose at. But I took _every_ job. I tried _every_ role. I don’t care if you think I sucked in my first ever big part.” His hand, on the table, clenches into a tight fist. “I don’t suck _now_. And I’m going to beat you with a big comeback film that’ll be better than all of yours combined.” Then his serious expression breaks into something like almost comical despair. “So why are you _here_?! This means you're _in_ it!”

Horrified, Kageyama whips his head around to stare at Suga. “Wait, what? _He’s_ been cast? In _A View from the Top_?”

“He’s been cast as – ah – your love interest,” Suga says, pushing a printed sheet of what looks like the full cast list towards them both. “Amemiya Hiroki.”

Tobio blindly shoves aside the cast list. “ _What?_ ”

“ _You’re_ playing Kaneko?” Hinata shrieks, simultaneously. “No. No, no, no, no, no. This has to be a mistake.”

“ _I’m_ the mistake?” Tobio snaps. “ _You’re_ the one who—” Barely able to voice his somersaulting thoughts, he instead turns furiously on Suga. “You told me they were considering Hoshiumi Kourai for that part!”

“They still cast Hoshiumi, just as your ex instead,” Suga says, holding his hands up defensively. “Okay – Kageyama – calm down, it’s not like _I_ did this—”

“He’s going to ruin my film!” Tobio bursts out. “He’s going to – to—” He’s going to do that _thing_ again, pull the scene every which way and make it go so haywire Tobio can barely even hear his own thoughts. “He’s going to _suck_!”

Sugawara’s eyebrows dip into a displeased frown, the amusement fading from his expression. “Stop it, Kageyama. You’re just being rude for no reason now.”

“And stop calling it _your_ film,” Hinata scowls. “You show-offy, smug – Smugeyama.”

Before Tobio can respond, Sawamura slams his hands down on the table, making them all jump. He looks at them both, stony-faced. And then pushes the (now slightly crumpled) discarded cast list back at them. Silence settles heavily over the room. Suga sits warily as though sidelining himself from this intervention, doing nothing to get in the way.

“You _both_ wanted to be in this film,” Sawamura says unsmilingly, “and you’re somehow lucky enough to both be in it. In no circumstances – and I repeat – in _no_ circumstances will I accept either of you disappointing Ukai by ruining your opportunity with one of the best new directors on the scene. I don’t care how much of a genius you are, or how badly you want to prove yourself. For as long as you’re doing this film together, you. Will. _Cooperate_.” He glares at them now, everyone else at the table sitting deathly still. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” Hinata squeaks meekly, and, somewhat reluctantly, Tobio gives him a curt nod.

Sawamura breaks into a sort of menacing smile. “Good! Now for the table read details.”

Tobio barely hears anything else for the rest of the fifteen minutes they’re in that room, however. He’s totally preoccupied running through all of his scenes with Amemiya in his head, already thinking about how much he’ll have to up his performance to make up for all the gaping holes Hinata will leave, wondering what kinds of highly specific instructions he can give Hinata to at least minimise the havoc he’ll no doubt wreak if he’s left to his own devices. By the time Suga nudges him to leave, he’s drawn a billion blanks, and has instead moved onto mentally questioning what exactly Kozume and everyone else was thinking when they decided to cast this guy.

“Hey.” Suga waves a hand in front of his face when the lift arrives and Tobio makes no move to get in. “You okay?”

“They would’ve been better off casting me for both,” he mutters.

“Hm?”

Tobio looks up, totally serious. “This film would be better if I was playing Kaneko _and_ Amemiya.”

Suga exhales as the lift starts moving and tilts his head to one side. “Do you really believe that?”

“Yes.” Why wouldn’t he?

“Okay, well, that obviously isn’t happening,” Suga shrugs. “So what are you going to do? Hm?”

Unable to think of a good answer to that, Tobio seals his lips in irritation and stalks wordlessly towards the car as soon as they arrive at the carpark. He can barely remember the other names he saw on the cast list – he’ll have to ask Suga to email him a copy later. If Hoshiumi’s still on board, and Oikawa, maybe this is salvageable? If they each just go a little harder than usual, with their combined efforts, they might be able to swallow Hinata’s performance completely. Yes, that might be best after all. And if even that’s not enough—

“Maybe they’ll change their mind after the table read,” Tobio muses out loud.

Suga rolls his eyes as he slows for a red light. “They’re not going to kick Hinata out of the cast, Kageyama. He _earned_ this role, same as you did. Well. Not quite the same, but you know. They chose you both.”

“I didn’t even do a screen test with him.”

“But you did _One Step_ together. Maybe they watched it.”

“There’s no way they could have watched _One Step_ and come to the conclusion that it’s a _good_ idea to cast us together,” Tobio says, shaking his head. He’ll just have to confront Kuroo about it directly when he next sees him. If the creative team’s going to stick to their guns on this decision, they’d better at least prove they have a plan on how to manage Hinata exactly. He’s been dying to work with Kozume on a film, and the last thing he’ll let Hinata do is mess up this opportunity.

He sinks deeper into the seat, eyes closed. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he grumbles.

Suga hums, not seeming particularly concerned. “You don’t say.”

* * *

Tobio downs what might be his seventh glass of water since he arrived at Kuroo’s place for their official table read. The producer had insisted on hosting them all, claiming he wants them to all feel comfortable and at home, and he’s booked them a cast-and-crew welcome dinner nearby for afterwards, too. Tobio’s not particularly fussed about the location – he’s been to Kuroo’s table read parties before – but he can’t shake the tension from his shoulders nonetheless. No points for guessing what’s causing it, he thinks sourly.

“Oy, loosen up a little.” Kuroo knifes him on both shoulders from behind, making him flinch. “And chill with the water. What are you, a camel?”

Tobio doesn’t grace him with a reply, and Kuroo comes to stand in front of him, hands on hips. “If you still want to gripe about casting Hinata, I told you, your complaints should be directed towards _him_ , not me.” He cocks his head in Kozume’s general direction, where he’s speaking in low tones to Udai at the other end of the table. “He’s the one who insisted on the guy. Udai wanted Hoshiumi at first, you know.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Tobio snipes.

“But then we did that live callback, and all the screen tests,” Kuroo says, apparently talking more to himself than Tobio at this point. “ _Man_.” He claps Tobio on the arm. “Anyway, you’ll see. He might surprise you.”

“I certainly hope so.”

The door opens, and one of Kuroo’s assistants comes into the room. They all look up to see Hinata come bounding in behind her, accompanied by Sawamura, who seems to be carefully carrying both of their coffees. As Sawamura drifts away from him to the corner of the room where Suga’s chatting to some of the department heads, Tobio feels his face form into a grimace. Trust Hinata to look as hyped up as ever, totally oblivious to all the stress he’s been causing Tobio.

Hinata bows to everyone and searches the table for his nameplate. His eyes fall on the seat beside Tobio, where he’s unsurprisingly been allocated. The look of pure excitement on his face muddies somewhat, and he picks his way past all the other chairs towards Tobio’s end of the table with resistance oozing from his every pore. Once he makes it all the way, he drops into the seat silently – but the silence lasts no more than two seconds, because he almost immediately turns to fix Tobio with a determined glare. “Just you wait, Smugeyama. I’m about to beat you, okay?”

“How do you beat someone at a table read, idiot?” Tobio snaps.

“I’ll – like – I’ll read better than you, obviously!”

Tobio turns to face him properly, staring him down witheringly. Hinata seems to shrink back a little. “If you can do better than me,” Tobio says, without a trace of sarcasm in his tone, “by all means, go head. You know, this might actually shock you, but I don’t _want_ you to suck. I want this film to be good.”

Hinata blinks, seemingly taken aback. Tobio turns away from him again, opening his script to a random page and busying himself with it so he doesn’t have to engage in any further conversation. He hears Hinata mumble, “well, yeah, I want it to be good too, obviously” but pretends he doesn’t. He has to reserve all his energy for what’s bound to be a pretty trying table read they have ahead of them.

One by one, the other actors trickle into Kuroo’s place. Hoshiumi arrives first, with his manager Hirugami in tow. Alisa Haiba, the sophisticated young half-Russian who’s been a growing name in TV recently, comes with her brother, who is apparently also her manager. Ushijima Wakatoshi and his manager Tendou arrive together with Bokuto Koutarou, who is as boisterous as ever, his manager Akaashi quietly trailing behind. Oikawa and Iwaizumi arrive last, bringing with them lingering traces of that distinctive BlueCastle aura that startles Tobio with its familiarity. And then, with that – they are all _here_.

It wouldn’t be an understatement to call it a star-studded cast. Tobio’s worked with almost all of them before – some of them more than once. In fact, most of them are exceedingly accustomed to one another, having not only acted together in various combinations, but also attended award ceremonies, dinners, commercial shoots, and the like. The only person who is distinctly out of place is—

“A fresh face!” crows Bokuto, coming to stand in front of Hinata. “You must be our Amemiya.”

At that, Hoshiumi looks up from his chat with Ushijima. Completely dropping out of his conversation without hesitation, he walks over purposefully to stand beside Bokuto, staring with intense focus at Hinata. Hinata squirms in his seat. “Um, hello. Yes, I’m – that’s me. I’m Amemiya. Well, I’m Hinata, but I’m. Um. Playing Amemiya…” He visibly cringes and stops talking.

Hoshiumi leans closer and tilts his head to one side inquisitively. “Hey. How many films have you done?”

“Films?” Hinata holds up his hands and starts counting under his breath. “Um, like – like nine, maybe? If I include all the random small roles and extra work… but I’ve done TV and commercials and stage stuff too—”

“And how long have you been acting?” Hoshiumi interrupts.

“…Three years.”

“Your agency?”

“He’s from Tobio’s new agency, of course,” says Oikawa pleasantly, approaching them. Hinata glances at him surprise, but Oikawa’s looking down at Tobio, not him. “Karasu.”

“Yeah, the one he left _you_ lot for!” Bokuto says, nudging Iwaizumi, who’s come over to hand Oikawa his reading glasses. “What do you reckon? Hm?”

“What agency Kageyama chooses is up to him. We have nothing to do with it,” Iwaizumi says, not seeming particularly interested in the topic. “Also – I think we’re about to get started. You might all want to sit down.”

The group finally dissipates, and out of the corner of his eye Tobio notices Hinata slump back into his chair, as if every muscle in his body had been pulled taut and is only now being allowed to relax. His excitement from earlier seems to have converted, at least somewhat, into nerves – maybe from being confronted by so many big names. Huh. So he’s intimidated by _them_ , but he can yell at Tobio without even a trace of fear? Tobio frowns. Should he feel insulted?

Kuroo claps twice to get their attention. “Thanks for the early start, everyone. I know you’re all busy people, so why don’t we get straight to introductions? You’ve all met me, of course – Kuroo Tetsurou, producing this film. I’ll ask my hand-picked creative team to introduce themselves now.” He holds up an invisible microphone under Kozume’s chin. Kozume gives him a surprisingly expressive look of judgment but, seemingly out of habit, leans forward slightly to speak into the ‘microphone’.

“Kozume Kenma, director,” he says quietly. “I also prefer to work on first-name bases with my cast and crew, so Kenma’s fine. But it’s not a big deal, so no need to worry about it if that makes you uncomfortable.” He gestures to his right, pushing Kuroo’s hand away in the meantime. “This is my assistant director.”

“Hullo!” An easygoing smile and wave, but Tobio’s worked with enough filmmakers to recognise that this guy won’t be all fun and games. “Miya Atsumu, great to meet you all.”

The rest of the department heads are, unsurprisingly, also in attendance. The director of photography is a tall, spiky blond sort called Tsukishima who Tobio’s never worked with but takes an immediate dislike to. He knows the production sound mixer Semi Eita from one of his more recent films, and costume designer Azumane from some TV work he briefly did. Udai Tenma is of course also here, and then the production designer, in charge of most of the film’s artistic direction and aesthetic, is—

“Wait, wait, I _know_ you!”

Everyone at the table turns to look at Hinata, who’s interrupted production designer Yachi Hitoka's introduction. Tobio kicks his leg (extremely hard) under the table in an attempt to shut him up but Hinata doesn’t even seem to feel it. He’s staring wide-eyed at Yachi, halfway out of his seat.

“You worked on _One Step_!” Hinata bulldozes on, apparently oblivious to all of the eyes on him. Tobio frowns. Is that right? He takes a second look at Yachi and studies her face, but can’t seem to recognise her. Was she production designer then, too? Or maybe set designer? No—

“Oh, yes,” Yachi stammers, her face slightly pink. “I was just on art standby, though. I didn’t think anyone remembered me even working on that film.”

Tobio gapes at Hinata beside him. He remembers some random standby art director from a film he worked on _three years_ ago? But – why? Why use up the brain space?

Hinata’s now leaning even further over the table towards Yachi, eyes sparkling. “Wow! So within three years you went from being on standby to being production designer for a film like this? You must be _really_ good!”

With every word he says Yachi seems to be turning a deeper shade of magenta, sinking further and further into her seat in visible embarrassment. Sawamura finally stands up to grab Hinata by the back of his collar and pull him back down into his seat, hastily replacing the half-finished coffee in front of him with a glass of water. A slightly overwhelmed silence drifts over the table. Yachi is now hiding behind her script.

Then Bokuto suddenly bursts into raucous laughter. “Man! You’re a funny dude, Hinata. You just have a way of drawing attention to yourself, huh? I guess the rest of us actors can’t lose!”

He jumps out of his seat. Beside him, Akaashi runs a hand over his face wearily. “Please sit down, Bokuto.”

“I’m Bokuto Koutarou, though I’m sure you all already know that,” Bokuto says dramatically, a hand on his chest as he bows deeply. “I’ll be playing Sano Hansuke, Kaneko’s volleyball teammate. And I’ll also gratefully accept the role of cast moodmaker.”

He sits back down proudly, and around him the awkward tension from before dissipates as everyone breaks out into slightly stunned giggles. Across the table, Tobio happens to make eye contact with Akaashi, who is wearing an expression he can only describe as a cry for help. Tobio tries to send him as sympathetic a smile as he can muster and Akaashi just sort of shrugs helplessly.

Amidst the laughter, Ushijima wordlessly stands up. The tittering quietens almost immediately; Tobio hasn’t seen Ushijima in a while, but it seems his unmatchable gravitas hasn’t changed. From the seat beside him, Tendou jabs Ushijima in the arm. “Why’d you get up?”

Ushijima looks down at him. “I thought we were standing up to introduce ourselves.”

“We’re not,” Kuroo says.

“Then why did Bokuto stand up?”

Bokuto preens and does a full revolution in his swivel chair. “Because I’m the best, so I get a special introduction.”

Ushijima frowns, clearly puzzled. “But you’re not even the lead. How are you the best?”

“Why don’t you just introduce yourself, Wakatoshi?” Tendou pipes up, flapping one hand dismissively at a now-grouching Bokuto. “Sitting down, maybe?”

Ushijima slowly lowers himself back into his seat with an air of suspicion, as though he thinks they’re messing with him. “Ushijima Wakatoshi. Playing another teammate, Gushiken Kazuya.”

“And I think I’m closing up the volleyball team supporting cast,” Alisa follows up smoothly, not leaving a spare moment for another chaotic interjection. She dips her head in a graceful bow. “Alisa Haiba – just Alisa, please, since my brother’s here too. I’ll be playing the club manager, Fujisaki Asami.”

The next seat over is Oikawa’s. Tobio watches his ex-company’s senior closely as he bows, giving the whole table a charming little smile and wink as he lifts his head – as unchanging as ever, it seems. Then again, Oikawa did always value _consistency_ , and he probably considers his branding just another facet of that. “Oikawa Tooru,” he says melodiously. “I’ll be playing our new star’s upperclassman, Masaki Rui. Lovely to meet you all.”

“I’m Hoshiumi Kourai.” Tobio feels more than sees Hinata tense slightly beside him as Hoshiumi bows, fixing them all with his characteristically piercing gaze. “Playing Ito Marise, Kaneko’s past lover.”

It’s almost unbelievable how even with two sentences he can make it feel as though there’s a spotlight turned on him alone. But of course, that’s precisely what earned him the admiration of his audiences and the respect of his industry, Tobio included. He’s been waiting for another opportunity to work with Hoshiumi – it’s been far too long – but he wishes the other actor had been cast in a bigger role where he’d have more chances to watch him in action. He scowls. How on earth did the role _Hoshiumi Kourai_ was being discussed as an option for get given to this ball of energy waiting to explode next to him?

“Hinata Shouyou!” says said ball of energy, bowing enthusiastically. “Playing Amemiya Hiroki. Thank you for this opportunity! I won’t waste it!”

“So you keep saying,” Tobio mutters. “You’d better be planning on proving it with your acting, too.”

“Now, now, play nice,” Kuroo calls out to him. “Nobody wants a grump for a lead.”

“If you didn’t want a grump for a lead, then why’d you cast the king of the set?”

Before he even fully registers who’s spoken, Tobio finds himself on his feet. There’s something sour rising in his throat like bile. He feels Suga grab onto his arm and shakes him off brusquely. “What did you just say?”

He’d just _known_ his instinct about that lanky blond dude wouldn’t be wrong. He’s studying his nails indifferently, although the corners of his lips are turned up in a mocking smile. “I’m just making an observation,” Tsukishima says, sounding bored. “It seems weird to say we don’t want a grump for a lead but knowingly cast the king of the set in that role.”

“ _Don’t call me that!_ ”

The temperature in the room seems to drop abruptly, and Tobio tries to force his breathing to slow down, his fists to unclench. He simultaneously feels like he’s rooted to the floor and also like he’s about to lose his balance completely. Suga’s grip on his arm tightens again as he tugs at Tobio a little desperately now. “Kageyama,” he hisses, “calm _down_.”

Tsukishima has his chin propped in one hand now, regarding Tobio directly. All feigned disinterest has disappeared now, replaced by almost cold curiosity. “Oh, sorry,” he says, “I guess us peasants should know their place—”

“Alright, that’s _enough_ ,” interrupts Kuroo, his voice uncharacteristically humourless. “Tsukishima – be civil. I know it’s your thing to get on people’s nerves, but don’t cross any lines. And Kageyama.” He looks distinctly displeased now. “You need to control your temper. I thought you told me you wanted things to be different?”

Startled, Tobio feels his eyes widen. He didn’t think Kuroo would so explicitly reference one of their drunken phone conversations, especially in front of so many other people. Oh, he realises, feeling a wave of shame engulf him unexpectedly. This isn’t chastisement. This is a reminder – not of what Kuroo wants from him, but what he told Kuroo he _himself_ wants.

Suddenly feeling drained, he drops into his chair silently. He sees Suga out of the corner of his field of vision, worrying his bottom lip, as though battling on whether or not to say something. Tobio closes his eyes.

“Okay, this mood _sucks_ ,” he hears Bokuto remark unabashedly. “Kuroo, take responsibility for this sucky mood. It’s your house. And your film.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on letting the mood stew like this forever,” Kuroo says dryly. “It’s not like we gathered here to argue. I’m pretty sure I asked you all here to do a _table read_ , so how about we try that, hm, you crazy actors?” He shuffles the pages of his script into a neat pile before placing it down heavily in front of him and picking up today’s cold brew. “If you’re all feeling so talkative, don’t waste your breath on picking fights.” He smiles at them testily, takes a sip, and settles back into his seat. “Let’s hear you all actually _act_.”


	4. Groundhog Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INT. KUROO TETSUROU'S HOME – DAY
> 
> _The mood around the table is casually positive. HINATA is smiling a little, his script in his hands._
> 
> **KAGEYAMA**  
>  I thought you said you were  
> 'different' now.

This isn’t news to anybody, and it most definitely isn’t news to Shouyou, but Kageyama Tobio is _good_.

Like, shivers-down-to-your-toes, reconsider-your-career-choice, mentally-curse-the-birth-lottery, _freakishly_ good.

The most annoying part is that it’s impossible to put your finger on why. There’s no single thing he’s doing, no magic trick; but it’s also not attributable to pure effort alone, that which everyone at the table has put in countless hours of, because _trying hard_ doesn’t earn you _this_ , this quality Kageyama has that still eludes Shouyou after all these years, makes him want to scrunch up his script.

Oh – so is this _that_ thing?

 _Genius_.

Ever since he debuted in his first film at the tender age of eight, the media’s called Kageyama all sorts of showy names. Before show business was even on his radar, Shouyou used to scoff at their exaggeration and hero worship of just another kind-of-good-looking celebrity dude. But after learning even a couple of things about acting, his grudging acknowledgement of Kageyama sprouted, and only grew as he learned more, and – as the gap between them crystallised in their film together – eventually turned into something resembling envy. Hence began his admittedly one-sided rivalry with one of the top young actors on the scene – the so-called _king of the set._ Not that he seems so keen on the nickname, if his bizarre reaction to that Tsukishima guy’s jab earlier is anything to go by.

And now here they are sitting side by side once more. Kageyama’s in the middle of reading an early scene with Bokuto and Ushijima. Shouyou’s never worked with either of them, only watched them on screen, but they translate about the same in real life. Bokuto is punchy and charismatic, confident in his every decision, down to each tiny inflection and pause. Ushijima is deliberate, grounded, and forceful in his delivery as always. And between them, Shouyou’s sworn rival shines – precise – magnetic – utterly believable. Shouyou’s been peeking over at his script as he reads, and he has these stupid illegible scribbles all over it in pencil. Shouyou thinks he might’ve seen the words _after-school milk box_ and _green apple_ and _like a torpedo_. Is that how geniuses take notes?

“…you practising again tomorrow?” Ushijima is reading.

“Yeah,” Kageyama says.

“Want some company?”

Shouyou’s breathing quickens as he realises his scene’s coming up – the one he did for his callback. That one. The fateful-meeting-scene.

Kageyama pauses. “No.”

Shouyou glances at the creative team, but none of them seem to have anything to comment. They’ve been interjecting here and there, and some of the actors have been asking questions, but now everyone turns their pages wordlessly, the gentle rustling taking the place of a clapboard. It’s his signal to begin. Through this perfectly set-up rising tension, the groundwork laid by three actors far more experienced and talented than he is, he has to leap in. Like a torpedo.

Shouyou breathes, steadying himself. He knows this scene like the back of his hand already. How many times did he run through it with Daichi?

“I hope I’m not disturbing your practice,” he says, a little louder than he’d intended.

He’s looking down at the pages of his script, too antsy to look at everyone, but he feels a couple dozen pairs of eyes immediately turn onto him. Beside him, Kageyama shifts in his seat. There’s a beat of delay – whether intentional, it’s unclear – before he speaks.

“Instead of ‘hoping’,” he says, and it’s perfect, _too_ perfect, like the voice in Shouyou’s head has simply manifested itself into the neighbouring seat, “you could just not.”

He laughs a little breathlessly, and can feel his hands trembling with nerves and exhilaration as he smoothes out the page. “I guess I can’t argue with that. What if I promise that I’ll… blend into the background?”

Kageyama huffs. “What are you even—”

His voice falters. Even that is impeccably controlled.

“I’m Amemiya,” Shouyou supplies, into the silence Kageyama has left him. “Amemiya Hiroki. You’re… Kaneko Aito.” Oddly, the name feels foreign and fragile in his mouth this time, like he’s saying Kageyama’s name instead. Regardless, he smiles down at the table, shy. “Kaneko,” he says, and lets himself savour its inexplicable _newness_. “Can I draw you?”

He sneaks a glance to his right, and is startled to see Kageyama looking directly at him. His grey eyes hold a sort of restrained heat – like a smoking ash heap still giving off sparks, rather than fresh flames. Shouyou looks away quickly. This thing he’s feeling right now, is it fear? Intimidation?

“No,” Kageyama says.

This is where he’d hit a serve – hard – over the net, just a little too forceful, trying his hardest to act unaffected.

“No one will see them,” Shouyou says, beseechingly. “Well – my professor might, but – it’s not for an exhibition or anything. I just need – some sketches. It’s practice.” He imagines himself holding up a notebook in one hand, a pencil in the other. “I… do art.” He looks up now at Kageyama. On set, he will throw a volleyball without warning at Shouyou’s hands, make him drop his notebook and pencil as he catches it. But for now, Kageyama just stares.

“Why me?” he says, roughly.

His every word glitters. Shouyou feels something urgent and buoyant swell up within him – _I can do it too I can do it too I can do it too I can_ —

“Why not?” he says immediately.

As soon as the words tumble out of his mouth he notices Kageyama frown at him minutely. Oops. Too fast? Oh, well, he’s just going along with the accelerating speed he’s set himself now. It feels better, anyway.

“I’m an artist,” he continues. “We get fascinated by… random things.”

Kageyama laughs shortly, not breaking character even for a moment, even though he’s clearly not happy with Shouyou’s pace. “I know.” He pauses and waits a little longer than necessary – it feels like a command. _Slow down, idiot._ “…I’m in the middle of something.”

Shouyou tilts his head to one side, as though scrutinising him. “Hm.” He leaves every trace of criticism or disappointment out of his tone. Because he _knows_ Kaneko will take it back. Amemiya is patient, yes; but more importantly, he is shrewd. So it feels right that now, only now, he lets the moment linger – slows it _all_ the way back down. “…Okay.”

There. He’s said it: the scene’s final line. Jittery with adrenaline, Shouyou leans back into his chair with a soft _thud_ , his makeshift walk-away from the scene. These were his first few lines at the table read, so he’ll be receiving feedback now, and he needs to get ready to take notes, but for now he’s gloriously caught up in the feeling that the moment is entirely _his_. Like for the briefest, _briefest_ of seconds, he snatched it right out of Kageyama’s hands. Crudely, perhaps, but snatched nonetheless.

“Oh my goodness,” Alisa says softly, cutting through Shouyou’s thoughts. He looks at her a little nervously, and she shakes her head, as though in wonder. “You’re like…” She searches for the words – gesticulates in the air. “…like… love at first sight.” Seeming content with the choice of phrase, she cups her chin in both hands and smiles at him. “If that feeling was a person.”

That’s a good thing, right? Shouyou glances around the table and his eyes briefly catch Hoshiumi’s; the challenge in them is barely concealed. It sends a strange thrill through him, thinking that he’s being challenged, as an genuine competitor, by someone like _that_. 

“I thought you said you were ‘different’ now.”

It brings Shouyou hurtling back down to earth, his pleasant moment of self-indulgence gone. Kageyama’s voice is hard, but there’s something like a trace of sincere disappointment beneath it, even though that surely doesn’t make any sense. Shouyou’s stomach lurches.

Kageyama sizes him up darkly and then looks away, as though he’s determined that there’s nothing left to even see. “How is _that_ ‘different’? You’re exactly the same.”

“Kageyama!” Sugawara warns, at the same time as Shouyou blurts out, “Well, what was _wrong_ with it then?”

“Okay, let’s see,” Kageyama says, holding up a hand and counting on his fingers. “Your pacing’s off. Your tone control’s all over the place. You were rushing in the middle and got totally carried away – you’re not the only one in the scene, you know.”

Tsukishima scoffs at that, and the implied _look-who’s-talking_ could not be made more obvious. Before Kageyama can continue, Oikawa cuts in, swirling his coffee cup nonchalantly in one hand.

“You’re not wrong, exactly, Tobio,” he says, and Shouyou droops a little, “but even you can’t deny that he makes Amemiya someone you can’t look away from. Which is kind of helpful, considering” — he shrugs — “we’re making a _movie_.”

“And considering that the point of Amemiya,” says Kenma, and they all turn to look at him in mild surprise, “is that _Kaneko_ cannot look away.” He just barely lifts his hand to point his pen at Kageyama. “You didn’t look away.”

It takes a moment to sink in, but when it does, Shouyou finds himself gawking at Kenma, and then at Kageyama. Hang on, so – is Kenma saying that Kageyama’s staring had continued that _entire_ time, even when Shouyou was looking down at his script? Had he been attempting to communicate his displeasure with – meaningful glaring, or something?

“Well, yeah, because the only way I could match pace was by watching him,” Kageyama says flatly. “Oy, Hinata. Do you actually _think_ about stuff when you’re reading? Or do you just steamroll through the lines with your eyes closed?”

“Says you, Mr Milk Box,” Shouyou retaliates, irked.

Oikawa laughs. Semi quirks an eyebrow. “…Mr Milk Box? Is this some actor thing I don’t understand?”

“His notes on his script are just random words,” Shouyou says petulantly, gesturing towards them. “At least when I think, I think about things that kinda make sense.”

“My notes do make sense,” Kageyama says irritably, “to me. Which is what matters. And stop looking at my stuff.”

“What?! As _if_ they make sense to you!”

“They do, dumbass, that’s what I just said! You can’t act, and now you can’t hear, either?”

“This is the most moronic argument I’ve ever witnessed,” Tsukishima mutters, turning the page of his script. “How you two possess the IQ to even remember your lines is rapidly becoming less and less clear to me. Can we _please_ continue?”

Shouyou isn’t in the next scene – it’s just Kageyama and Alisa – so he sits huffing to himself with his back pressed against his chair, fighting the urge to kick at Kageyama’s shoes under the table. What did he have to call him out like that in front of everyone for? Stupid Smugeyama. He missed his opportunity to get proper feedback from the table, too, although Alisa and Oikawa had been kind of nice about it. He hates this feeling of being left behind, wants desperately to catch up to – to equal – to _surpass_ these brilliant actors sitting around him. He wants to deliver his lines with the same fluidity and ease, the same total control, as all of them. But for now all he can do is what’s innate to him, what he’s been honing over the past three years – sheer, perhaps crude mental immersion, without shying away from letting _every single thing_ he feels simply spill over.

So he does the rest of the lines the way he knows best, even though Kageyama doesn’t like it, even though he knows it’s far from perfect. When they eventually get through their first read through, Kuroo’s assistants pass around sandwiches and fruit for them to nibble on while the creative team summarise their notes and murmur suggestions to one another. Shouyou takes an egg sandwich even though he’s well aware that he’s way too high on adrenaline to stomach it. He’s taken no more than three bites when Udai speaks.

“Thanks for a great read, everyone,” he says, and his voice is unexpectedly clear and cheery. “I’ll be making some minor script changes based on my notes from today, but you should get the new copies before too long.”

“In the meantime, some directorial notes for you all.” Kenma taps his pen against the last page of his script, which appears to contain his notes on each of them, scattered with circles and underlines. “I’ll start with Kageyama. You clearly understand what we’re going for with Kaneko here, and your execution is…” He seems to reread over his own writing, as though seeing it for the first time. A tiny smile appears on the very edges of his lips. “…uncanny. But you were a little stiff today. I hear you’re not the type to get nervous, so it’s obviously not that – I think, actually, we both know what had you on edge today.” He fixes those eerily probing eyes on Kageyama, and Shouyou steals a glance at him, just a furtive little look to the side to gauge the other actor’s reaction. Kageyama is largely expressionless, though he seems a little tense. Kenma continues unbothered. “Since that _particular_ source of aggravation for you isn’t going to just vanish, though, you’re going to have to sort yourself out. Work around it. Or, preferably” — here, the tiny smile widens into an incisive grin — “work _with_ it.”

The advice is weirdly opaque. Shouyou licks his lips a little nervously, wondering whether everyone’s feedback will be this cryptic. He’s never been good with metaphors and wordplay and things like that but he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by asking Kenma to repeat himself. Well, he supposes, there’s no guarantee anyone else is making heads or tails of this, either.

“I understand,” Kageyama says, an edge to his voice, just as Shouyou’s consoling himself with the thought that he _doesn’t_.

“Good. Okay, Hinata.” Kenma seems briefly lost in thought as he looks not down at his notes but at Shouyou, slightly askew, like he’s only half-registering his own field of vision. “Hm. Hinata.”

Shouyou swallows. “…Yes?”

“You’re really not thinking at all when you act, are you?”

The words sound unkind, but his voice isn’t. Kenma sounds – amused, almost. Intrigued?

“No, no, I do,” Shouyou says quickly.

“About what?”

“Um.” His mouth feels dry. Should he take a sip of water? Will that make it look like he’s stalling? “I just… I imagine myself as, um, as the character… and then I put myself – as them, obviously – into the situation… of the scene… and then I…” As he continues, though, he realises with a kind of looming awareness that what he’s describing is not at all evidence of _thinking_. “…just… let myself feel as they would feel… and do whatever comes naturally.”

Kageyama snorts.

“Well. There’s nothing wrong with method acting, and a lot of actors do it,” Kenma says, “but method acting isn’t thoughtless. No acting technique is. You’re lucky enough to have the kind of energy that makes people look at you, but I think it’d be even more effective if you wielded it a bit more deliberately. You’re clearly _feeling_ a lot, and I think it’d help if you started to discriminate between the different emotions you’re experiencing when you’re doing your whole character-immersion thing. You know?”

Um. Not really. “Yes,” Shouyou says, perhaps a touch too quickly.

Kenma hums thoughtfully and looks back down at his script. “It’ll make more sense once we’re doing it all on set, I think. But for now, you – _both_ of you – would benefit from looking beyond yourselves a little. That’s all.”

Shouyou’s brain feels like it’s swarming with words. Discriminate between emotions? Wield his energy deliberately? Look beyond himself? Are these instructions, or motivational Instagram captions? He looks a little helplessly over at Daichi, who just gives him a noncommittal shrug, and then at Kageyama, who’s staring at his coffee cup with intense concentration. Kenma’s supposed to this incredible director, right? Shouyou _thinks_ he gets it – the guy is evidently noticing stuff in his actors beyond what people ordinarily might – but he wishes it was explained in a way that was easier to understand. He can follow directions, no matter how harsh they might be. But these are practically _riddles_.

“Okay,” Kenma says, “I’ll be moving on now.”

* * *

It’s getting dark by the time they finish for the day. Purplish evening light trickles in through the windows and dapples Tobio’s script. Kuroo rises from his seat, having been largely quiet while the creative team explained what the plan was for the next month of pre-production, and clears his throat loudly. 

“So! As I mentioned, we have a full cast-and-crew dinner tonight,” he says, with the room’s full attention on him now. “We’ll be heading over to a favourite restaurant of mine just the next street over. This’ll be a great opportunity for everyone to meet the rest of the crew, so make sure to mingle. If the idea of that stresses you out…” He smirks pointedly at Tsukishima, whose expression makes it clear he’s fighting the urge to flip Kuroo off. “…there’s a pretty hefty bar tab for you all to make use of.”

The table erupts in cheers, and then they’re all getting up, collecting coats from managers, trooping out together. Kuroo hangs back as they spill out the door and ambles over to join Tobio. He doesn’t mind the company; Suga’s ditched him to go chat to Hinata and Sawamura, and Kuroo’s an interesting conversation partner, when he’s not being deliberately annoying.

“So, what was it like having a director roast your acting for, like, the first time ever?” Kuroo says, sounding far too satisfied.

Tobio sighs. What was that about being deliberately annoying? “He didn’t ‘roast’ my acting. He gave me some helpful critiques. I like getting feedback.”

“Mm. So how are you planning on actually doing what he said? The Hinata stuff, specifically.”

Tobio stops walking, staring at Kuroo in surprise. “How’d _you_ know he was talking about Hinata?”

Kuroo rolls his eyes and pushes at his shoulder to get him walking again. “I’m pretty sure the only person at that table who didn’t realise that your ‘source of aggravation’ is Hinata was Hinata himself.”

“Well, he _is_ aggravating.”

“And you’re as stubborn as ever.” He flashes Tobio a grin as they pass under a streetlamp, his face eerily lit, Cheshire Cat-like. “You should talk to him during dinner.”

“Like hell I will,” he says, and Kuroo laughs.

True to his word, Tobio doesn’t attempt any conversation of the sort, though he does find himself watching Hinata get taken up by this or that table throughout dinner. The guy’s obnoxiously loud, of course, and almost artificially bubbly – so he supposes it’s no real shock that he’d be popular in settings like this. He’s already gelled with Bokuto, though he could’ve seen that pairing coming from a mile away. But he’s also been talking a lot to the AD – Miya – and, somewhat strangely, he thinks, Oikawa. Right now he’s in the middle of a chat with Tendou, Ushijima, and one of the hair stylists they’ve met tonight – Tsutomu Goshiki, if he’s remembering correctly. But as Tobio watches, the group of four continuously attracts passing drifters who gravitate towards them as though magnetised, and before long several tables have been pushed together and some sort of massive game’s been started and at the centre of it all, still irritatingly energetic despite having chattered away all evening, is Hinata Shouyou.

“Kageyama. You have the scariest expression on your face right now, no wonder no one’s approaching you.” Suga puts down a beer in front of him and sits down across the table, propping up his chin. “You’ve been in a foul mood all day.”

“Really? Hadn’t noticed,” Tobio says, a little tartly, and then immediately regrets it when Suga just continues looking at him with that painfully patient expression on his face. “…Sorry. I…”

“Suck at communicating your feelings, I know,” Suga says with a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to force you to socialise. Just wanted to bring you a drink and hang out.” When Tobio doesn’t make any move to respond, he hesitates momentarily, and then, the nervous caution written all over his face, says: “Hey. Can I… ask you something?”

Tobio shrugs and reaches for his mug.

“When we first started working together, two years ago, I know it was because you and your old manager decided to… part ways.” Suga scrubs at the back of his neck self-consciously. “Was it, um… was it… amicable? Or did something… happen?”

Tobio supposes this question was bound to come at some point or another. Honestly, it’s probably more of a miracle Suga resisted the urge to ask for this long. He’s always been obscure about his past manager and work, and though Suga’s made passing references to his older films, Tobio’s only ever responded to them obliquely, never letting the topic linger. He doesn’t see the point in bringing up old scars now. He’s learned from his mistakes and all that really matters is that he avoids making them again.

“Nothing really,” he says, taking a sip. “Why do you ask?”

He’s not sure whether Suga actually buys it, but the manager doesn’t push, and for that he’s grateful. “Ah, okay. No reason. Just – I suppose I wanted to make sure there weren’t things I didn’t know or understand about you that I maybe should.” He smiles now, sincerely. “I’m on your side, Kageyama.”

Suga in his corner. It’s a nice thought to have. He’s used to being a bit of a lone ranger, but he supposes there’s nothing to lose from having a little more faith in his manager. Not that that means he’ll go bringing out all the skeletons in his closet, of course. He has enough on his mind right now.

Still— “I know you are,” he responds, and, despite himself, he actually kind of means it.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there you have it !! sorry for those of you who were excited for tobio to be blown away by shouyou he's still just a lil too ~ c h a o t i c ~ for our straight-laced boy 🥺 but it's not our freak combo unless there's always something to work on right!!
> 
> principal photography (the actual filming part) to begin soon ♥ hope ur as keen as i am! as always, thank you for your lovely comments, they bring me such tiny moments of joy!!


	5. Fight Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INT. HAIR & MAKEUP TRUCK – EARLY MORNING.
> 
> _HINATA sits in front of a mirror, GOSHIKI wielding a blowdryer to one side, KINDAICHI a handful of makeup brushes on the other._
> 
> **KINDAICHI**  
>  So, first day on set with Kageyama, huh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this took a while, but i wrote almost the whole thing and then lost the draft so had to rewrite it :( and then i was planning on editing & uploading it yesterday, but I was watching the jackals v adlers match lol and lost track of time. (how good was it !!!) but here it is at last! principal photography finally begins!

Autumn is ebbing away into its last couple of weeks as they finally begin shooting. Shouyou arrives well before his call time for his first day on set – they’re on campus for the gym scenes today – and is only half-surprised to see Kageyama already there, sort of ominously hovering in a corner with his script in his hands. Shouyou grumbles at the sight of him. “Let’s come a bit earlier tomorrow,” he says, stroppily, and Daichi rolls his eyes.

There’s still time before he’s needed in wardrobe, so Shouyou busies himself with trying to put names to all the now vaguely familiar faces bustling around set. He’s pretty sure he spoke to almost everyone at least once at that meet-and-greet dinner. Some people he feels he knows well already – there’s Yachi by the volleyball net in the middle of the gym, gesturing at her set decorator, Suna, to lower it a little; not far away, tall-blond-snarky director of photography Tsukishima is deep in conversation with the chief lighting technician, Yaku, who stepped on Shouyou’s left foot at dinner and then teamed up with him for their drinking game. Then there are a smattering of faces he thinks he can probably comfortably recall – their gloomy propmaster, Sakusa (currently counting through a box of volleyballs) is hard to forget, and sound mixer Semi Eita who was at the table read seems to be busily prepping his enthusiastic boom operator – his name was Ko-something – Kogane––?

“Well, aren’t you here nice and early! Are you folks at Karasu always this – ah – _raring_ to go?”

The AD appears at Shouyou’s side seemingly out of nowhere, looking far too put-together for this early in the day. Shouyou shoots him a bright grin. “And if it isn’t the one and only Miya, champion of the Welcome Dinner Drinking Championships! Good morning.”

“I _told_ you after those very Championships that you can call me Atsumu. Where’s your manager?”

“Grabbing me some water. Do you need me already?”

Atsumu shakes his head. “Not for a bit. Just thought I’d run you through where you’re headed, since you’re here anyway.” He looks over Shouyou’s shoulder and calls out. “Hey, Tobio! Can you c’mere for a sec?”

Man, they really have a way of ending up lumped together, don’t they? Shouyou must have pulled a face without realising, because Atsumu laughs at his expression as Kageyama walks over. “You guys _seriously_ don’t get along, huh?”

“ _You_ try getting along with him,” Shouyou mumbles. “He’s got, like, the worst temper ever.”

“You’d better not be talking crap again,” Kageyama says, coming to stand beside him, barely concealing his annoyance. “If you have the time to do that, practise your lines.”

“Okay, _okay_ , Tom and Jerry,” Atsumu says easily, slotting his script between them like a wall and gently swatting them both in the face. “ _This_ can wait. I, however, have _actual instructions_ for you. So pay attention, ‘cause I have a billion other things to do, and I won’t say this twice.” Waiting for them to nod begrudgingly, he points first at Kageyama. “Okay, Tobio. All the same as yesterday, for you. Asahi will be dressing you, then go get your hair done with Yuuji and makeup with Kenjiro. Shouyou – you’ll be starting in the hair & makeup truck just outside the gym front entrance. You’ll have Tsutomu on hair and Yuutarou on makeup – you remember them from dinner, right? – and _then_ head to the wardrobe truck. So – in the opposite order from Tobio. Does that make sense?”

Is he splitting them up because he thinks they can’t even sit in the same truck and get their hair done quietly without breaking into a fight? That’s kind of embarrassing. _Or_ maybe Shouyou’s just reading into it. Anyway – “yep,” he answers, seemingly satisfying Atsumu enough for him to give them both a sort of amused pat on the shoulder.

“Ah, there you are, Kageyama, I thought I’d lost you. Oh, hi, Hinata!”

Sugawara gives him a warm smile as he approaches, handing Kageyama a paper cup full of what looks like hot chocolate. There are two tiny cute marshmallows bobbing in it. _They don’t even suit him_ , Shouyou thinks a little grumpily, as Kageyama blows on the surface of the hot chocolate carefully before taking a sip. He emerges over the rim of the cup with a faint hot chocolate moustache over his top lip, and Sugawara visibly stifles a laugh.

“Oy, Tobio, you _are_ aware you’re, like, kinda an A-list celebrity,” Atsumu teases, holding his phone up so Kageyama can see his reflection in the screen. “You’re gonna lose your Aloof Handsome Guy rep if you’re not careful.”

A flush rises up Kageyama’s neck, tinging the tips of his ears, as he hastily scrubs at his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come off it. We all know _exactly_ what I’m talking about.”

Atsumu’s not wrong. _Aloof_ is precisely how Kageyama’s always appeared to the public eye, and the papers and Internet have really run with his frosty aura, painting him as a sort of enigmatic, solitary genius lost in his own little world. The whole ‘king of the set thing’ – though Shouyou can’t remember where the nickname actually originated – hasn’t really helped to dispel that image, and by now it’s pretty much a fixed part of Kageyama’s branding. ‘Frosty’ as his exterior may be, Shouyou thinks to himself now, there’s no denying Kageyama’s insanely hot-headed once you actually spend more than, like, ten minutes with him. Man – if only the Twitter stans somehow found out their Aloof Handsome Guy had such a non-aloof, non-handsome temper…

“Wipe that grin off your face,” Kageyama snaps, “I can tell you’re thinking something stupid.”

“Okay, I’m not sticking around to break up any more arguments,” Atsumu snickers, rolling up his script and stepping away from them as Sakusa approaches, seemingly with a question. “Try not to get in a punch-up. I don’t wanna give makeup a hard time. See you on set in a bit, Wild Child One and Two.”

Tilting his head to hear Sakusa’s question over the chatter, Atsumu disappears from view, swept up almost immediately in the steadily growing hustle and bustle around them. The three of them watch him go, and then Shouyou turns to face Kageyama.

“I’m One,” he says.

Kageyama gives him a look of immense contempt. “What are you talking about?”

“Wild Child One,” Shouyou says stubbornly, pointing at himself, “and Two.” He points at Kageyama.

As Sugawara starts laughing, Kageyama’s brows furrow into a frown. “ _Why_ are you laying claim on something so stupid, you dumbass? …And I’m obviously Wild Child One,” he tacks on in a mutter, taking an angry swig of hot chocolate.

“You two are seriously amazing,” Sugawara says sincerely, wiping tears from his eyes. “ _Seriously_.”

“I won’t even ask,” comes Daichi’s weary voice, from behind Shouyou. A fresh water bottle appears over his shoulder. “Here you go.”

Shouyou takes it gratefully, although if he’s perfectly honest he’s sort of craving a hot chocolate now. “Thanks!”

“And I passed by these on the way back – thought you’d want one.” Stepping in to join the little circle they’ve formed, Daichi gingerly passes Shouyou a paper cup identical to Kageyama’s – complete with not two, but _three_ baby marshmallows. _Ha._ “Hot chocolate.”

Gasping in delight, Shouyou all but snatches it out of his hands. “How do you always _know_?! Hey, if the manager gig doesn’t end up working out, maybe you should try being a mind-reader.”

“Thanks, Hinata,” Daichi deadpans. “In case you need the bathroom before wardrobe, by the way, I’ve found the closest one.”

“I need it right now! Mind-reader, I’m telling you,” Shouyou enthuses, grabbing Daichi by the arm and crowding him in the direction he’s pointing, _away_ from Kageyama. Sugawara gives them a little wave as they troop away and Shouyou returns it a little sympathetically. Honestly, the guy must have unbelievable patience, dealing with Kageyama nearly 24/7. How long did he say they’d worked together, again?

Their journey to the bathroom ends up being extended quite a bit longer than expected, as Shouyou keeps getting stopped by crew members pausing to say hello. They all seem busy, but the entire set holds a sense of controlled chaos, more _efficiency_ than _stress_. At the centre of it all, of course, is Kenma – today in a dark grey hoodie with his hair swept up in a black scrunchie, he radiates the impression that he is seeing _everything_ happening on set around him, perfectly calm and focussed as always. Right now he’s in the middle of a conversation with Kuroo, so Shouyou think it’s probably best to avoid interrupting them, but makes a note to go and say hi properly later. They’d chatted quite a bit at the welcome dinner and, despite definitely being the most reserved of the entire creative team, Kenma had turned out to be a surprisingly nice and down-to-earth conversation partner. Not that you’d be able to tell from his baffling directorial advice.

They eventually do make it to the bathroom, but by that point it’s taken them long enough that as soon as Shouyou steps out of the stall Daichi’s whisking him off to the hair & makeup truck. True to Atsumu’s word, Goshiki Tsutomu and Kindaichi Yuutarou are waiting for him inside, and they plonk him in front of a mirror immediately, shooing Daichi towards the little coffee table in the far corner.

“It’s nothing complicated for you, so this shouldn’t take too long,” Goshiki tells him, switching on the blowdryer. “I’m just gonna make you a bit less… maple leaf, bit more soft dreamy arts student.”

“Maple leaf?” Shouyou splutters indignantly, and Goshiki flashes him an unapologetic grin.

Kindaichi steps back a little to let Goshiki work, sorting through his bottles of foundation and holding them up one by one to shade-match Shouyou. “So, first day on set with Kageyama, huh?”

“Mm-hm,” Shouyou says. “Not his first day though, right?”

“Yeah, he’s been doing his gym scenes with the rest of the volleyball team.” Kindaichi settles on a shade and sets it aside. He starts digging through a pouch full of differently coloured eyebrow pencils instead. “With Bokuto and Ushijima and Alisa and stuff.”

“He’s been surprisingly well-behaved,” Goshiki comments, over the whirr of the blowdryer. “You said so many nightmarish things, Kindaichi, I was kind of spooked.”

“Hey, when I last worked with him, he _was_ a nightmare,” Kindaichi says defensively.

“Or maybe you’re just being a drama queen,” Goshiki says solemnly, and gets swatted with an eyebrow pencil.

“I’m serious,” Kindaichi grouches, “he practically thought he was the one directing that film. He wouldn’t stop interrupting his own scenes to yell at the other actors about what they were doing wrong, and how they weren’t matching what he was doing, or whatever. Literally every other actor I did makeup for on that film spent most of their time in the dressing room complaining about him. It’s a wonder he doesn’t get fired from all his shoots.”

“Well,” Goshiki says, and a significant look passes between them, before they both fall silent. Shouyou’s dying to ask, but he also doesn’t want to look like he knows the least about his own company colleague. Not that he cares, anyway. Everyone knows Kageyama’s a jerk. No surprises there.

“Maybe he’s reformed,” Goshiki suggests.

Before Kindaichi can reply, Shouyou finds himself unable to stop from leaping in. “No _way_ ,” he says emphatically. “You should’ve heard him at our table read! He was all––” He deepens his voice and furrows his brow dramatically. “ _You suck! You’re all over the place! Stop getting carried away!_ ”

Both Goshiki and Kindaichi laugh. “Yeah, that sounds like him,” Kindaichi says wryly. “Good luck out there today, Hinata. Sounds like it’ll be a bit of a battlefield.”

Once he’s been sufficiently transformed into ‘soft dreamy arts student’, Kindaichi and Goshiki send him and Daichi off to wardrobe. They bump into Azumane on the way, the tall friendly costume designer Hinata remembers well from the table read, who seems to be on his way _out_ of the wardrobe truck with his hands full of binders and folders.

“I’ve already finished with Kageyama,” he says to them by way of explanation, just before he hurries off in the direction of the hair and makeup truck. “Akane will be dressing you. She’s great, you’ll love her. Good luck with the shoot today!”

Key costumer Yamamoto Akane is indeed ‘great’ – energetic and efficient, she pauses only to exclaim in satisfaction at Shouyou’s hair and makeup before immediately getting to work pulling and zipping him into Amemiya’s outfit for the day. It seems the whole _soft_ theme has been translated literally into his clothes: they’ve got him in a big floofy cardigan and a pair of aged Levis, which Akane very carefully rolls up at his ankles, spending nearly ten minutes alone on – according to her – giving them the highly important ‘right amount of carelessness’. And then somehow they’re all done, and Shouyou realises it’s been almost a couple of hours since his bathroom trip, and suddenly it’s time to be back on set. Akane and Kindaichi and Goshiki have perfectly done their parts now. All that’s left is for _him_ to act.

Inexplicably, his heart has started quietly thrumming, sending shivers up and down his arms and legs. Daichi seems to notice and squeezes his shoulder as they walk back into the gym. “You’re gonna be great,” he says firmly. “They _chose_ you.”

Everything’s been put together. The net’s been adjusted to a height of Yachi’s liking, and Sakusa’s placed a half-open sports bag and a cart of volleyballs to one side of the gym. Nearby, the giant, silent first assistant camera Aone fiddles with the camera set-up while Tsukishima stands beside it, explaining something to the freckly camera operator Yamaguchi, who’s nodding along. The controlled chaos of set from earlier has settled into something more muted and complete now. They’re all waiting – for _him_. Him and, of course––

“Ah, there you are, Tobio,” calls Atsumu, gesturing for him to hurry up. “Kenma wants to run through rehearsal now. You good to go?”

Shouyou turns to watch as Kageyama comes in through the gym doors, Suga behind carrying his things. He’s in casual sportswear but otherwise looks about the same as usual – thorny and cold. Well, that’s about right, Shouyou supposes. Maybe that’s what makes him such a perfect fit for Kaneko.

Kenma gets up from his chair to meet Kageyama halfway, beckoning for Shouyou to join them. “I’ll be waiting here,” Daichi says, nudging him. “Just yell if you need anything.”

Kageyama barely glances at Shouyou as he approaches them, though Kenma nods in mute approval after giving him a quick once over. “Okay. For rehearsal, I mostly just want Shouyou to get comfortable with the space. Kageyama” – Shouyou notes triumphantly that they’re not on first-name basis yet – “you don’t have to go all out with the serving just yet. But it’s a good chance to get warmed up.”

Kenma walks Shouyou through the basic blocking for the scene, leading him over the double doors he came in through while Kageyama goes to stand by the net. Shouyou tries his very best to concentrate – he really does – but for some reason he’s especially jittery today, and he feels like he might’ve missed a quarter of what Kenma’s told him. Ah, well, he thinks, as Sakusa hands him a sketchbook and pencil. He supposes he’ll have to wing it.

Kenma backs off now, stepping behind the court markings of the gym floor and rejoining Kuroo, who’s watching them attentively with his arms loosely folded over his chest, and Atsumu. Atsumu clears his throat and cups his hands around his mouth to call out to them. “Alright, we’ll be doing a rehearsal for scene 10. Actors ready? Okay – let’s go – action!”

Just metres in front of Shouyou, Kageyama tosses a ball above his head, and leaps into the air.

For a moment, Shouyou just watches his back in awe as he serves beautifully – not that he knows the first thing about volleyball, but that had looked _extremely_ real, down to the satisfying _thunk_ of the ball hitting the gym floor. Just how much has the guy been practising?

The second ball goes up. Kageyama’s lit by the stream of daylight coming in through the gym windows, hitting the dancing wisps of dust in its path, painting a thin strip of gold across the top of Kageyama’s hair. He jumps again, his arm cutting through the air, another elegant serve arcing over the net. He looks unexpectedly powerful, but also, Shouyou notes almost as an afterthought, somehow very lonely in his solitary practice.

Kageyama reaches for a third volleyball, and Shouyou hurriedly steps forward onto the court as he tosses it.

“I hope I’m not disturbing your practice,” he calls out. His voice rings out under the high ceilings of the gym.

The ball drops; Kageyama catches it, but doesn’t turn around. “Instead of hoping, you could just not.”

Keeping his eyes locked on the tight line of Kageyama’s shoulders, Shouyou laughs softly and walks over towards the stands, sitting down carefully in a patch of sunlight. “I guess I can’t argue with that. What if I promise that I’ll blend into the background?”

Kageyama huffs. “What are you even––”

He turns to look at Shouyou, and instantly his expression changes. It’s crazy – as though a mirror is being held up to him, Shouyou feels like he _knows_ how Amemiya looks in Kaneko’s eyes right now, could pick apart for hours at the millions of emotions tangled up in his face. Excitement zips through him without warning. He stands up.

“I’m Amemiya. Amemiya Hiroki.”

Kageyama just looks at him.

“You’re Kaneko Aito.” He smiles, waits one heartbeat. “Kaneko. Can I draw you?”

A long pause stretches between them, and then Kageyama grinds out, “ _No._ And _quit getting overexcited_ , you dumbass, you’re acting like it’s your first time on a movie set!”

Dumbfounded, Shouyou stares at him blankly. “…What?”

“Didn’t you listen to what your _director_ told you? _Think_ about what you’re saying and doing!” Kageyama says furiously. “You’re throwing _me_ off too. That’s not how you’re supposed to read the lines!”

As the reality of the situation finally strikes Shouyou – that this is seriously happening, that Kageyama’s really interrupted rehearsal to shout at him again – he feels the jolt of exhilaration from earlier transform instantly into irritation. “Are you serious right now? _You_ play Amemiya then, if you’re so good!”

“Oh, _believe_ me, I would if I could!” Kageyama snaps, without missing a beat.

Shouyou’s hands clench around his sketchbook, but before he can retort, a snide laugh nicks at the edges of the tension rapidly thickening around the set. Shouyou looks over to its source, quick enough to give himself whiplash. Tsukishima is watching them from his spot near the camera crew – who, unsurprisingly, have also stopped what they’re doing to look on in stunned silence.

“There he is,” Tsukishima drawls, “the king of the set.”

“I told you to _shut up_ with that,” Kageyama snarls at him, the muscles of his jaw jumping.

“What is _wrong_ with you, Kageyama?” Shouyou exclaims at last, unable to contain himself. “It’s bad enough trying to direct me even though it’s not your job, but now you’re getting mad at the _director of photography_ , too? And for practically no reason!”

Seething, Kageyama turns on him once more. “It’s not for _no reason_ , dumbass. Don’t butt into things you don’t understand.”

“What is there not to understand?!”

“ _Oh_ , I see,” Tsukishima says languidly. “I guess you don’t know the – ah – origins of our king’s lovely nickname, Hinata. Do you?”

Shouyou blinks, confused. “What do you mean? You mean the origins of the ‘king of the set’ thing? Isn’t it just because he’s… y’know, really good?”

Tsukishima hums, seeming far too entertained, as Yamaguchi shoots him an alarmed look. “I can see why you’d think that. He _is_ very good, isn’t he? The problem is _he_ thinks he’s a little too good. Too good to be held back by a _peasant_ like yourself, or, it seems, any other actor under the sun.” He tilts his head to one side when Shouyou just continues staring at him in bemusement. “This – genius – earned his kingly nickname not from his fans or adoring critics, but from his fellow cast members. Because he’s such an egotistical, self-centred, megalomaniac _king_ that he tries to control _everything_ about his films. Not just himself and his own acting, but you, and us, and anyone else who dares step foot on his precious set.”

Wide-eyed, Shouyou looks from him to Kageyama, who now has his head bowed, his shoulders vibrating with tension.

“It was a nickname given to him by the actors that walked off set and refused to work with him anymore,” Tsukishima finishes. “The king had to be recast, less than a fraction of the way through principal photography. Because his co-stars decided, _we don’t want to act with him anymore_.”

Shouyou gapes at him. Part of him doesn’t quite believe it can be true. Sure, he might be a bit of a control freak, but surely you wouldn’t give up the chance to act with a genius? But no one’s disputing the truth of it. Not even, Shouyou realises with a jolt, Kageyama himself.

Unexpectedly, in the icy quiet that follows Tsukishima’s declaration, Sugawara’s voice is the first to break through. “Okay, that’s quite enough, I think,” he says, every trace of his usual warmth completely gone from his voice. “Kenma – I’m so sorry – but could we take five?”

Kenma nods. “Of course. I think the catering’s due to arrive soon anyway, so we may as well give everyone a tea break. Atsumu, could you––?”

“Of course,” Atsumu says smoothly, and claps his hands together twice. “Okay, everyone, you’re in for a special treat. The catering from today onwards will be provided by my brother, who is slightly inferior to me but admittedly fairly good at cooking, and his far more competent co-boss. If you all want to head over the break area…”

As the crew moves somewhat hesitantly out of the gym, herded far more enthusiastically by Atsumu, Sugawara rushes forward and ushers Kageyama away. Shouyou barely has a moment to register that rehearsal’s been cut short before Daichi’s appeared by his side with a jumper for him to shrug on. He turns numbly to face his manager and only then notices that Kenma’s with him. The two of them are watching him wordlessly.

“…What just happened?” Shouyou says.

“I know this might be asking a bit much, Shouyou,” Kenma says quietly, “but is there any way you could forget that just happened?”

Nonplussed, Shouyou steps closer to them both. “Forget it?”

Kenma shrugs. “I need all of my actors performing at their very, very best for this film to work. I think it’d be best if you guys just go by the ‘what happens off set stays off set’ principle.”

“But… that _didn’t_ happen off set,” Shouyou says haltingly. “That was… kind of the point, I think.”

“Hinata,” Daichi hisses at him, clearly exasperated.

“I get that, and I get that you must be feeling kind of thrown off right now.” Kenma looks down briefly at the script in his hands, and then at his director’s chair, then back at Shouyou. “But in my mind, that attempt at directing you is as good as non-existent. A direction that’s forced onto someone like that in the heat of the moment can never be good.” In the shallow light still streaming into the gym, undeterred, Kenma’s eyes gleam gold. “Besides. Kageyama doesn’t own this set. He only owns his own acting. The sooner he realises that that’s more than enough, the better.” He sighs softly, shaking his head a little. “…Anyway. Oikawa’s coming in later for your confrontation scene, and I think we might try and shoot that first. Do you mind heading back to wardrobe after this break?”

Shouyou nods, though he wonders if it’ll improve anything to throw Oikawa into the mix now as well. “Sure thing.”

Kenma gives him a tiny smile. “Thanks. Now go have some food, you’ve still got time.”

“Come on, let’s go. Thanks, Kenma.” Grabbing his arm, Daichi steers him out of the gym, leaving Kenma alone – Shouyou now realises that Kuroo must have disappeared in the commotion, too, though he has a feeling he’s not just vibing it at the food table. Just as Shouyou’s thinking he’ll be headed there anyway so he can see for himself, Daichi sharply turns him away from the direction of the break area and plonks him down onto the steps leading up to the gym doors.

“You don’t need everyone talking to you about _that_ right now,” he explains matter-of-factly, when Shouyou gives him a puzzled look. “Stay here. I’ll grab you food.”

Watching him go, Shouyou leans forward, wrapping his arms around his knees. He wonders what Kageyama’s doing right now. Shouyou hadn’t been able to get a proper look at his face before he was carted off by Sugawara, but his rigid body had said it all. Whatever he’d been feeling then – it was clearly completely different to the frustration underlying all of his usual shouting at Shouyou. If what Tsukishima said was true… he vaguely remembers reading something a few years ago about Kageyama leaving a particular project midway, but he – and probably everyone else – had always assumed it was on _Kageyama’s_ terms. BlueCastle must have done a lot to keep the nasty details under wraps.

…Being kicked off a project by your castmates. He imagines the sting is a bit different to just being rejected a film’s creative team. There’s always a sort of solidarity between actors working on a project together, tied together by the understanding that their ability to bounce off one another’s performances could be the difference between a good and great film. Like the various harmonies of a musical composition weaving together, you work through your mutual reliance to produce a single, unified whole. To be told so directly that the other pieces of the puzzle that you don’t fit – no – that they don’t even want you to _try_ to fit – that they’d rather do it without you…

But Kenma’s asked him to forget that it happened. And to be honest, this information doesn’t _really_ change much for Shouyou. He’s never been one to analyse these types of things in a lot of detail – he prefers to mind his own business, mostly. Maybe it’ll just mean Kageyama’s a bit nicer to him now. Or at least less obvious about yelling at him in front of everyone. That can’t be a bad thing, right?

Sighing, he stretches his arms and legs out, basking in the clear autumn sun. Whatever the details of it may be, he thinks to himself, there’s absolutely no denying that this shoot is looking like it’ll be _far_ from an unexciting one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise this will be the last of the Very Nothing Chapters !! 'the moment' is coming very very soon - i'll be aiming to upload on wednesday for hq day, so pls be patient with me for just a little longer 🥺 ALSO i made a tumblr so if anyone wants to yell with me about how excited we are for cour 2 come talk to me @soeunaa !!


	6. When Harry Met Sally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EXT. GYMNASIUM – DAY.
> 
> _HINATA, KAGEYAMA, SUGAWARA, and DAICHI sit on the steps outside the gym in the autumn sun, sharing onigiri._
> 
> **HINATA**  
>  Eating something tasty is always  
> the best way to cheer yourself up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is the 19th already in sydney, so here, have this ♡

Tobio’s not even really sure where Suga’s leading him. He’s staring resolutely down at his ground, watching the concrete underfoot pass by. He knows they’re definitely not in the break area, which is grassy – maybe he’s being taken to the truck that’s functioning as a makeshift dressing room for the actors?

“Kageyama.”

Tobio looks up, realising with a start that Suga’s stopped walking. They’re outside the dressing room truck, but Suga’s not making any move to actually go in. He has his arms loosely crossed and is regarding him carefully. For a painfully long, awkward moment, they stand there facing one another in silence, neither one wanting to be the first to break it.

Finally, Suga sighs, uncrossing his arms. “This is ridiculous.”

It feels as though a cold, clammy fist has closed over Tobio’s heart. No, no, he finds himself repeating to himself desperately, please don’t let this be happening. “Suga—”

“I can’t believe that Tsukishima guy put you on the spot like that,” Suga continues, as though Tobio hadn’t even spoken. “I mean, was it really necessary? The people who knew already knew, and those who didn’t probably never needed to know. Poor Hinata looked like a deer in headlights in that situation, too. God, _honestly_.” He huffs vexedly and pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut briefly before opening them slowly to look directly at Tobio. “I do kind of wish you’d told me, though.”

Tobio swallows and glances down at his hands. They feel a little numb. “…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Suga says, his voice unbearably kind. “I sort of get why you didn’t. But can I ask – is that why you and your old manager fell out?”

Nervously, he meets Suga’s gaze, holding it for a trembling moment before nodding minutely.

“Well,” says Suga. He seems to consider his next words, as though unsure which of the many options he has are actually the best. But then he shakes his head to himself and smiles. “Well! Good thing you’ve got me now.”

Something that had been pulled taut within Tobio’s lungs suddenly releases, flooding through his chest without warning and blurring his vision. He tries to speak but even his throat feels strangely choked up. So he just nods again, and Suga’s smile widens, and they both know that that’s enough – at least for now.

“We should probably tell Shimizu later, too,” Suga comments offhandedly, “but I’m happy to take care of that. For now – more pressingly – are you feeling okay enough to go back in and do your thing after this break?”

“Of course,” Tobio says quickly. “I’ve already delayed the shoot as it is.”

“I suppose you did,” Suga muses. “Was it – ah – absolutely necessary to say all that stuff to Hinata? If there was a problem with his delivery, Koz— Kenma probably would’ve picked up on it after the runthrough, anyway.”

Tobio grimaces. “I can’t help it. I just – I feel like I know how the scene’s supposed to look, and if everyone just did it that way—”

“Wait, wait, Kageyama.” Suga waits for him to falter off before continuing. “Hinata isn’t you. No other actor is, actually. They’ll never pull off exactly what you’re envisioning, because that’s based on _you_.”

“But—” Frustrated, Tobio resists the urge to pull at his hair, knowing Terushima will kill him if he messes it up. “Hinata – he can be good. Really good. If he just does it properly.”

“Hinata’s not half-assing it, Kageyama,” Suga says, gently. “No one is. That’s him going all out and doing his best. Maybe he doesn’t see himself the way you do, but – like – if you see something in him that he can’t, then – can’t you, sort of…” He seems to struggle to formulate the words, narrowing his eyes in concentration and gesticulating a little helplessly to fill the space. “…I don’t know, help him utilise it better? I _know_ you’re good enough that you could make it work, if you just stop – um – I guess deliberately _holding him down_ so much.” He winces a little. “…Okay, that made no sense.”

But out of all that mess of words, something _does_ kind of feel as though it’s on the verge of clicking, as though not quite fully-formed yet but beginning to take shape. Tobio regards Suga with a little surprise. “…No, I think I… kind of get what you’re saying the problem is.” Not that he knows what he should actually do about it yet, of course. But that’ll come to him. It always does.

Suga’s phone suddenly pings in his pocket, and he scrabbles for it hastily, eyes scanning the screen. “It’s Atsumu. He says Kenma wants to shoot your gym scene with Oikawa first. Apparently he just got here and he’s in wardrobe now.” He looks up from his phone. “You gonna be okay? It might be a good idea, actually. Bit of a reset.”

“Anything’s fine,” Tobio says. “I just want to get back on set.”

“I’m surprised you do, after that,” Suga remarks. “I guess you really do love it, huh? Come on, then, we’ll start heading back. We can beat the crowd.” 

It seems they aren’t the only ones who had the idea, because seated on the steps leading up to the side door of the gym are none other than Hinata and Sawamura, balancing paper plates on their laps loaded with onigiri and fruit slices. Hinata is chattering away as blithely as usual. Something about the sight is strangely comforting to Tobio – at least superficially, he seems to have already moved past what happened.

Sawamura spots them first, waving them over. “Did you hear about the change of plans?”

“We did.” Suga lowers himself onto the steps beside him and gestures for Tobio to join them. The only space they’ve left him is right next to Hinata. Studiously avoiding his gaze, Tobio sits down. For a moment they both sit in silence – perhaps vaguely listening to Suga and Sawamura discussing the scheduling changes – until, out of the blue, Hinata says, “I don’t care, you know.”

Tobio knows he could probably convincingly feign confusion, or maybe indifference. But there’s no point, so he just sits there and lets Hinata continue.

“I already know you’re a colossal jerk, Smugeyama. And that you’re a colossal genius. But if you yell stuff at me that isn’t helpful, well… I just won’t listen.”

Tobio glances up before he can stop himself, meeting Hinata’s eyes head-on. They are wide and almost childishly transparent, holding not even a hint of insincerity. The surprise must have registered on his face because Hinata shrugs at his expression. “I’m just saying, I’m not about to walk off on you. I feel like that would mean you win, anyway, and I want to beat you fair and square. So just focus on doing your _own_ thing, and do it properly this time, okay? Beating you because you have a breakdown on set doesn’t even feel satisfying.”

“I did not have a _breakdown_ ,” Tobio says, affronted. “And I was _provoked_.”

Hinata squints at him like he’s not sure whether Tobio’s joking, and shoves his plate of onigiri under Tobio’s nose. Tobio takes one warily and bites into it while Hinata shoves the last one into his own mouth whole. The rice is still a little warm, its fluffiness invitingly homely.

“Good, right?” Hinata says, swallowing his mouthful.

Kageyama nods. “…Yeah.”

“Eating something tasty is always the best way to cheer yourself up,” Hinata says matter-of-factly, stretching his arms out above his head and yawning, his face turned up to the sun. A part of Kageyama can’t quite believe that his unchangingly cheery tone is actually genuine – surely there are limits even to Hinata’s seemingly boundless optimism – but for his own sake he hopes it is. It’ll be one less thing for him to worry about once they walk back on set.

“I need the bathroom before we start,” Hinata declares, springing to his feet. “Daichi, want me to take your rubbish?”

“I’ll just come with you,” Sawamura says. “See you both inside in a bit, then.” As he ducks into the gym behind Hinata, he pauses to give Tobio a brief pat on the shoulder. “You were a kid, Kageyama. It’s good to learn from mistakes, but don’t let it consume you.” He grins, almost sternly, like he’s telling Tobio off for not believing in himself or something. “I’m rooting for you.”

By the time Oikawa emerges from wardrobe, the set’s been rearranged in preparation for their scene together. Tobio’s not sure whether it’s because Atsumu maybe said something to the cast while they were eating, but everyone seems generally happy to sort of pretend the whole drama from earlier didn’t happen, and the mood on set has mostly returned to normal. This doesn’t, of course, stop Oikawa from accosting him gleefully as they wait for their cue after Kenma’s finished briefing them all.

“See, when it comes down to it,” Oikawa declares, far too consolingly, “you’re a baby in this world. A tiny naive baby. You still need someone to show you the ropes.”

Tobio barely has a moment to consider how to retaliate before Iwaizumi beats him to the punch, thwacking him across the back and making the actor yelp. “Shut up, Oikawa.”

“You’re seriously so _mean_ ,” Oikawa pouts, massaging his back and throwing Iwaizumi a resentful look. “Can’t you let me have, like, _one_ thing over this stupid genius?”

“Okay, rehearsal for scene 47, good to go?” Atsumu glances around the set, and Oikawa stalks off to join Hinata at the edge of the gym. “Great – actors in places, please – and – action!”

Tobio starts fiddling with the volleyball in his hands, tossing it absentmindedly as he glances up at the wall clock, looks away, looks back just once. Although no one’s there to see him do it, he makes a show of not caring and spikes the ball hard across the net.

As it lands, the doors on the other side of the gym swing open and then slam shut. Footsteps dash in, and Tobio lets a shameless grin alight on his face.

“I’m late, sorry!” comes Hinata’s voice, and then he’s rounding the edge of the bleachers, slowing to a stop and leaning forward on his knees as he catches his breath. Oikawa now emerges from behind the bleachers too, looking considerably less ruffled, wearing – already – a smile.

Tobio lets his own grin drop and takes an annoyed step towards them, before halting abruptly. “Why are you here?”

The smile on Oikawa’s face widens almost eerily, and he steps past Hinata, approaching Tobio from the other side of the net. “I’m Amemiya’s upperclassman. Masaki Rui.”

“I didn’t ask for your name,” Tobio says, glowering at him. “I asked why you’re here.”

In his periphery, he sees Hinata straighten, frown with displeasure. “Aito. Don’t.”

Tobio turns to look at him sharply as he approaches the net. “What?” he bites out, only barely concealing the pang Kaneko feels at the interjection. “I’m just asking why he’s crashing my practice.”

Oikawa laughs airily. “So, I guess it’s _only_ okay with Amemiya does it?” He slings an arm over Hinata’s shoulder breezily, pulling him the slightest bit closer. “Hm. What makes him so… _special_ , I wonder?”

Hinata looks at him uncomfortably, and then through the grid of the net at Tobio. His gaze holds not the frightened uncertainty Tobio had expected, but a kind of deliberate intensity, as though he’s not cowed by the situation but is trying intently to read it. Still holding Tobio’s gaze, Hinata says, “…Masaki? Is something…” Only now does he turn back to face Oikawa. “…Is something wrong?”

If Oikawa’s at all caught off guard by the forcefulness with which Hinata’s delivered the line, he doesn’t show it. But he also doesn’t simply go on the way he had at the table read, either – effortlessly smooth and comfortably in control of the situation. Tobio notices how the hand slung over Hinata’s shoulders twitches ever so subtly, and his Adam’s apple bobs, as though _Masaki_ has been caught off guard by the development, though Oikawa himself hasn’t. A split second of hesitation before he replies. It slots his line into place with Hinata’s pace perfectly. “Nothing at all. Just wanted to come see why my precious underclassman waxes so lyrical about his…” The manipulative mockery returns to him now, as though he’s caught his rhythm again. “… _Study reference_.”

Tobio tenses as though the phrase had been spat directly into his face. Between them, Hinata burns like a flame, as though trying to smoke them both out.

 _His line._ “It’s too much of a distraction to have both of you. I’d prefer if you left.”

Oikawa gives a tinkling laugh, flicking his hair out of his face. “Man, this is why I prefer references that can’t talk back!”

Hinata turns that hard, fiery stare on him, much more quickly and assertively than Tobio had envisioned, and Tobio watches Oikawa carefully for his next movements. _There._ He’s doing it again. As though Masaki is reacting to Hinata’s – no, Amemiya’s – startling intensity, Oikawa lifts his arm off Hinata’s shoulders a little more hastily than he probably needs to, like Amemiya’s knuckling into Masaki. But then he holds his hands up in mock defeat, his composure back in a second. “Fine, fine,” he says swiftly. “Be a good model, Mr Volleyball, okay?” He starts backing off from them, easy sauntering backwards steps away from the net. Then, the death blow: “Don’t make Amemiya _drop out_ of uni.” A cold smile curls over his lips. “He’s such a fun underclassman.”

Tobio watches him as he turns and walks towards the gym doors, frozen. Hinata watches him disappear, too, and then whirls around to face him, the net still between them. “Aito. What was that about?” The words come unexpectedly clipped and hard.

Tobio lets his eyes flick down, glances over Hinata’s face. Oikawa had… is it too late to be thinking about that right now? – no, no, it’s never too late, because he knows he can pull it off. He can do it because he’s him. _Think think think think think._ “…Nothing.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Hinata says, and he’s _blazing_ , as always – not giving him a moment to breathe. He almost sounds too audibly angry.

Not that it matters. Tobio knows he can deliver the next line precisely as he’s practised it, icy, aggressive. But. But – deep down, he realises that if he does, he’ll all too perfectly _clash_ with Hinata right now, and Hinata will no doubt barrel on with the same stubbornness, and their dialogue will just end up sounding like childish back-and-forth snapping again. The problem is, Kaneko, by this point in the film, would probably only be able to snap like that at Amemiya if Amemiya was clearly the vulnerable one in the exchange. Because – whether he’s consciously realised it or not – Kaneko now _needs_ Amemiya. But if Amemiya’s unexpectedly pressing this hard, surely it would make it infinitely harder for him to feel certain that Amemiya needed him back.

So in a split second Tobio decides to abandon his plans. He can produce a line delivery that will impeccably match the vision of the scene in his head, yes, but this scene _isn’t_ the one he’d envisioned. Okay, so, what to do about that? Oikawa might be able to _match_ Hinata’s pace, being as adaptable and finely attuned to his fellow co-stars as he is. But, Tobio realises, seized by a sudden flash of awareness, _only he_ can take this new pace Hinata’s brutally forced onto the scene and mould it into something better. And all he needs to do it is his consistent, meticulous, self-assured, razor-sharp control over his _own_ lines.

“It was _nothing._ ”

His voice sounds harsh at first glance, but he can hear it, and he knows everyone else can, too: the slight desperation underlying his tone, the tiny waver as he struggles to steel himself. Kaneko – recognising he cannot make this suddenly thorny Amemiya drop the subject with brute force right now – instead will _implore_ him to drop it. If Hinata refuses to let Amemiya become the vulnerable one here, then Tobio will instead make him deal with a Kaneko who is the vulnerable one instead. _Ha. Right back at you._

Hinata blinks at him, and instantly, the very edges of that thorny sharpness seem to crack. Like an ice sheet being pierced through.

Trying not to let his satisfaction show in Kaneko’s expression, Tobio exhales roughly – a little shakily – through his nose. Then, almost instinctively, he reaches out to clutch at the net between them, curling his fingers through its grid, crumpling the threads that separate Kaneko from Amemiya. “Hiroki.” He takes a deep breath and presses forward a little more. Hinata doesn’t back away but searches his face, waiting for him to finish the line. “…Let’s go to the gallery tomorrow.”

Hinata inhales sharply, so quiet you could miss it. He hadn’t done that at their table read. It makes it sound as though Amemiya is briefly overwhelmed, caught off-guard by Kaneko so abruptly stripping himself raw and showing his hand, whether he meant to or not. And then Hinata reaches up to lace his fingers through the net too. Their hands hang together side-by-side. Tobio holds his breath.

Hinata smiles. “Okay.”

 _Good._ Tobio releases his breath but not his gaze. Hinata stares resolutely back. There seems to be a strange mutual understanding between them that whoever looks away first loses. And it sure as hell isn’t going to be Tobio.

Atsumu whoops from the side of the gym, and in almost perfect synchrony Tobio and Hinata look over at him, releasing the net from their grasps. But Atsumu’s not even facing them – he’s gripping Kenma by both shoulders and shaking him excitedly, to the great amusement of Kuroo beside him.

“That was it, right?” Atsumu says gleefully. “What we were waiting for?”

Kenma swats Atsumu’s hands away and looks over Atsumu’s shoulder at Udai, who’s been watching on fairly quietly from his seat the whole day. Udai gives him a small nod. A tiny smile appears on Kenma’s lips as he returns the nod and looks back at Atsumu, golden eyes flicking over to Tobio and Hinata once. Despite the fact that he does little else to acknowledge them, it’s immensely clear that he’s happy for them to do it exactly like that again. “Yeah. It’s what I was waiting for.” He addresses the crew now: “Camera and sound, final tweaks please. I think we’ll go straight into shooting.”

Inuoka, their costume standby, hurries onto the set to adjust the sleeve of Hinata’s cardigan as Tsukishima rejoins the camera crew, seemingly making some comment about the way the early afternoon light is coming in through the windows. Tobio steps away from the net and shakes himself out. He somehow feels both deeply satisfied and ravenous to do even more at once.

“That was _super_ good, Hinata,” Inuoka is saying animatedly. “And you, too, Kageyama, of course!”

Hinata beams. “Really?! You thought it was good?”

“Yeah! I don’t even really know exactly what you guys are doing, to be honest, and I’m probably missing half the details, but I can tell it’s really cool. It felt kinda different to – uh – before!”

At that, Hinata glances at Tobio, the huge beam not leaving his face. “Yeah, it did.” His eyes hold a question in them that he doesn’t need to voice for Tobio to understand: _are we doing it like this from now on?_ And he’s equally sure he doesn’t need to voice the answer: _yeah, obviously._

“I thought you had a crisis before I arrived?” Oikawa joins their circle, and Inuoka immediately starts fussing over his hair. He throws Tobio a slightly petulant look. “And yet you still manage to pull something like that…’

“What’s ‘that’?” Inuoka asks distractedly, flicking a speck of dust off Oikawa’s jumper before kneeling down to re-tie Tobio’s shoelaces.

Oikawa tilts his head slightly to one side, expression turning thoughtful. “You couldn’t wrestle him into submission, but you couldn’t bring yourself to just dance to his tune, could you? So you stepped into _his_ approach to the scene, and you _used_ that crazy intensity of his. You used him to push the boundaries of his own framework.”

“I knew I could do it,” Tobio replies boldly.

Oikawa smiles wryly. “Of course you did.”

“Actors, places, please!” Atsumu waves his hands around in the air to catch their attention, and gestures towards the gym doors. Oikawa and Hinata immediately hurry away in the direction he’s pointing. Inuoka finishes with Tobio’s shoes and steps back, apparently satisfied, giving him two thumbs up and then jogging off to join the rest of the crew. Tobio gathers himself and goes to stand a little further from the net.

Atsumu calls out, “Picture is up – quiet, everyone!” He waits for a hush to fall over the crew, and then: “Roll sound!”

Semi nods. “Scene 47, take 1,” he says into the mics, and then, a little more loudly, “sound speed!”

“Roll camera!” Atsumu yells.

Yamaguchi leans over his camera to start the recording. “Speed!”

Second assistant camera Hyakuzawa – who, along with first AC Aone, dwarfs poor Yamaguchi by comparison – raises the clapperboard in front of the camera. “Marker.” The clean snap of the clapper closing rings out through the gym, and Tobio straightens slightly. The only thing left to do now is to just execute the whole thing again perfectly. That particular prospect is, as usual, not daunting in the least.

Atsumu takes a breath. “And – _action_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suga is president of the kageyama tobio protection committee (i'm the vice president)
> 
> ALSO if anyone has good niche sports (or really any genre) anime / manga recs pls hmu on tumblr or twitter (@soeunaa) bc i need something to consume while i wait for blue lock to update lmao i've just been binge watching those haikyuu texting stories on yt instead in the meantime
> 
> (alternatively your fav fic recs would also be greatly appreciated !! only so many times a gal can reread in another life before she gets dehydrated via weeping xoxo)


	7. Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INT. THE GYMNASIUM - AFTERNOON.
> 
> _KAGEYAMA, BOKUTO and AKAASHI stand at the sidelines, sipping on coffee as the crew bustles around them._
> 
> **BOKUTO**  
>  Y'know, you've really mellowed out, Kageyama.
> 
> _KAGEYAMA and AKAASHI turn to look at him. AKAASHI raises an eyebrow._
> 
> **AKAASHI**  
>  That's a little patronising, Bokuto.

Things come together. There’s no other way to describe it – things just… come together after that. The crackling electricity and peppery tension that have laced every interaction Shouyou and Kageyama have shared since that first Karasu welcome dinner are undoubtedly still there, but they’ve taken on a sort of controlled magnetism. It doesn’t feel like it’s messing them up anymore. It feels more like they’re wielding it.

Well. It sort of feels more like Kageyama’s wielding it and Shouyou’s just doing what he’s always done, but. It’s probably just a feeling.

And it’s not as though Shouyou’s just sitting back and doing nothing. In fact, probably the exact opposite is true. He boldly does what feels best to him, talks back whenever Kageyama yells at him about it, complains in turn if he thinks Kageyama’s off his game. Not that he’s ever been one to let Kageyama give him a beating – it’s just that since _that day_ he somehow feels minutely, but meaningfully, less intimidated by the star actor’s apparent perfection.

Kageyama’s still annoying, of course, and he doesn’t hesitate to make that known. This is something the rest of the cast and crew seem to regard with growing amusement, if their offhand comments about it are anything to go by. “You sure do sass Kageyama a lot, Hinata,” Yamaguchi remarks absentmindedly one morning, as he fiddles with his camera, frowning at it in concentration. They’re all standing around in the gym waiting for Kageyama to emerge from wardrobe (according to Sugawara’s texted reports to Daichi, the actor’s hair is absolutely refusing to behave itself that morning and poor Terushima is valiantly battling it alone). “I’m kind of surprised he lets you get away with it.”

Shouyou blinks, surprised that anyone could think Kageyama’s letting him ‘get away’ with anything. “But… he doesn’t. Haven’t you seen how he yells at me loads whenever I do _anything_?”

Before Yamaguchi can respond, Tsukishima snorts from beside him and mutters, “For the king, that _is_ letting you get away with it.” When Shouyou doesn’t respond, Tsukishima rolls his eyes as though unimpressed by his obvious confusion. “He yells at you but he lets you do the things you want, right?”

Shouyou opens his mouth to deny it indignantly, but even a split second of considering it lays bare the truth of Tsukishima’s observation. Kageyama’s vocal about what he thinks are ‘stupid’ or ‘reckless’ acting decisions Shouyou’s making, but despite his quibbles he’ll always work with it the next take, perfectly balancing the scene in a way that lets Shouyou blindly do whatever he wants with it. Perhaps that’s why Shouyou ends up leaving every day of filming feeling weirdly satisfied, like he’s smashed a couple home runs and then some. Because Kageyama’s been… letting him.

The thought somehow doesn’t sit quite right with him.

“Speak of the devil,” Tsukishima says dryly, and they all turn to watch as Kageyama hurries into the gym with Sugawara, hair now tamed, fully kitted in his volleyball gear. They beeline straight to Kenma, who’s flanked by Atsumu and Kuroo as usual – it looks like Sugawara’s apologising for the hold-up, and Kenma waves it away as expected, and then gestures for Shouyou to cover over.

“Go wild out there as usual,” Tsukishima calls out with a smirk, as Shouyou walks away from them. “We’ll make it work.”

Decisively quashing that same unsettling feeling that the quip gives him, Shouyou joins Kageyama’s side so Kenma can walk them through his instructions for the scene. He hasn’t had many complaints with the way they’ve been doing things for the past week-ish. Neither, it seems, has Udai. It’s a little surprising, considering how closely Shouyou and Kageyama have been toeing the line of going off-script, remodelling their characters, reconfiguring the dynamics of their relationship. And yet that feeling of it all _coming together_ – Shouyou guesses he’s not the only one experiencing it with their scenes.

Atsumu walks them over to their starting positions for rehearsal once Kenma’s done briefing them. They’re starting on the same side of the net today – Kaneko’s teaching Amemiya to serve, long after that first fateful meeting, but long before Masaki ever makes an appearance. When they maybe both half-believed this could be something normal and sweet. Their brief golden days. And so the scene should feel golden, too.

_Go wild out there as usual._

Shouyou blinks. How is he still thinking about that? Shaking his head to clear it, he takes the volleyball Sakusa offers him and rolls between his hands a little, feeling distinctly confused. Is what Tsukishima said really still bothering him? But… why?

“Oi,” Kageyama says suddenly. “Focus.”

“I _am_ focussed,” Shouyou snipes. “ _You_ focus.”

“I’m always focussed, dumbass.”

“Hinata, Kageyama, _focus_ , please!” Atsumu calls from the bleachers, and they both shut up, having the decency to at least look a little chagrined. “Okay, _thank_ you. Good to go? Alright – rehearsal for scene 19 – action!”

Shouyou watches Kageyama’s face immediately shift into one of almost childish amusement as he tosses the ball in his hands high into the air in demonstration. He makes a lazy run-up and hits it easily over the net. They both watch it fall, and then Kageyama turns and gives Shouyou a bright grin. Returning it a little self-deprecatingly, Shouyou attempts to mimic his effortless toss – botches it – runs for it anyway – leaps – and smacks it squarely into the net. It boinks pathetically onto the gym floor. The two of them exchange a glance, and then both dissolve into giggles.

Watching Kageyama trying to stifle his laughter, the edges of his eyes creased in the closest thing to an outward show of vulnerability Kaneko has displayed up to this point, Shouyou lets a thrill of adrenaline blitz through him and blurts out: “Kaneko. Kaneko. Let me – let me draw you.”

Kageyama’s laughter softens into a tiny smile. His expression, as always, is impeccably controlled, and Shouyou privately marvels at the way he smoothly pauses to accommodate the abruptness with which Shouyou had jumped in with his line. He tilts his head, regards Shouyou with a thousand emotions brimming _just_ behind what he shows on his face. And then he steps away, grabbing another ball from the basket. “Show me. If I like it… you can draw whatever you like.” He bounces the ball once and then catches it, carefully scrubbing at a tiny scuff mark on one side. “You get five serves.”

He lifts his eyes to lock gazes with Shouyou.

Shouyou resists the urge to suck in a breath. The challenge is Kaneko’s – the one being tested, Amemiya – that’s the way this is _written_. Kageyama would be well within his rights to toss the statement out like a dare, boldly provoking a response, and yet he doesn’t. The look on his face right now is almost apprehensive. What he’s laid on the table isn’t a challenge so much as a question: to Amemiya, is Kaneko worth this effort? _How much do you want me?_

There’s no doubt about it. The one who holds the power right now is Amemiya.

_He yells at you but lets you do the things you want, right?_

Stamping the thought from his head, Shouyou smiles, pulling a pencil and sketchbook from the shoulder bag that’s been added to his costume together. He backs up until he reaches the bleachers and drops into a seat quickly, his eyes tracing the form of Kageyama’s body as he readies himself.

Kageyama starts serving like his very life depends on it. He hits every ball with an almost desperate sense of forcefulness as Shouyou passes his pencil over the creamy pages of his sketchbook, letting his eyes flick up to glance at Kageyama every few seconds. The fifth serve skims the top of the net and catapults into the ground with an echoey thud. Silence falls on the gym.

Breathing heavily, Kageyama holds out a hand in his direction. Shouyou stands and approaches him and then presses the open sketchbook into his hands, leaning back and folding his arms across his chest. Kageyama stares down at the croquis scattered across the double spread as though mesmerised. Shouyou waits, letting the moment settle, and then says lightly, “Well?”

Kageyama looks up. His Adam’s apple bobs. Shouyou smiles at him.

Wordlessly, Kageyama steps away from him and turns around. He stands quietly at the baseline, and Shouyou regards him silently, not wanting to disturb the perfect stillness between them. Sunlight streams into the gym and pools golden at the nape of Kageyama’s neck, in his collarbones, his Cupid’s bow. And then those rockpools of light shift and blur as Kageyama moves. The ball arcs into the air. He serves, beautifully, gorgeously. His every move is graceful and guileless.

This time Shouyou lets Amemiya’s breath catch in his throat. The pencil tightens in his grip. Kageyama just keeps serving silently, and Shouyou eventually begins sketching again. Not a word passes between them as they wait for their call.

“Scene,” Kenma says quietly, and they both relax. “Nicely done. I have some notes, Shouyou, Tobio, if you could just come over.”

“When did _you_ get on a first-name basis with him?” Shouyou mutters, nudging Kageyama as they walk to join the director at the sidelines.

Kageyama shrugs. “Couldn’t let you keep beating me.”

“That’s stupid.”

“ _You’re_ stupid.”

They’re within earshot of the others now, and Kuroo rolls his eyes as they approach. “You two are seriously unbelievable. How do you even have the energy to argue between takes?”

“Good stamina,” Shouyou grins proudly, as Kageyama says simultaneously, “Caffeine.”

Shouyou swats at him for interrupting and Kageyama bats his hand away like it’s second nature at this point, barely even reacting. He aims a punch at Shouyou’s hip and Shouyou dodges it deftly without a second’s hesitation. Kuroo gives them an amused look as Shouyou blinks a little, catching himself. When did the two of them start – _syncing up_ like this? If that’s even the right term for it. He sneaks a glance at Kageyama. Has the other actor noticed it, too?

“Okay, so let’s start with Shouyou,” Kenma says, jerking him out of the train of thought. “When he’s teaching you at the beginning...”

Shouyou tells himself sternly to pay attention for what feels like the hundredth time that day. It’s a little hard to focus, though, when Kuroo keeps giving him curious looks from over Kenma’s shoulder. He pretends he doesn’t notice – not that Kuroo’s making any real effort to be discreet; the intrigue is plastered all over his face. But _why_ , exactly? Frustrated at his inability to come up with a solid answer, Shouyou sighs internally with a sort of reluctant self-awareness.

Subtext. He’s missing it again, isn’t he?

* * *

“Y’know, you’ve really mellowed out, Kageyama,” Bokuto comments one afternoon, as they sip on coffee while the crew makes their between-scene adjustments. Tobio furrows his brows, unsure how to respond, and in the end Akaashi beats him to it. “That’s a little patronising, Bokuto.”

“What! No! I’m not trying to make fun of you or anything.”

“No, I’m not offended,” Tobio says finally, “I’m just… not really sure what you mean.”

“I guess I mean like – you’re more, like—” Visibly struggling, Bokuto turns to look at Akaashi somewhat pleadingly, as though in an appeal for him to supply him with the right words. Akaashi gives him a sort of lukewarm shrug. Looking betrayed, Bokuto instead glances wildly around them like he’s hunting something out, before suddenly lunging forward to grab an unsuspecting Ushijima by the arm as he walks past.

Staggering to right himself after the sudden tug, Ushijima blinks at them all a little owlishly. “Hello. Are we wanting to rehearse lines?”

Completely ignoring him, Bokuto points a finger straight at Tobio’s nose. “Okay. Ushiwaka. I need you to really _think_ here. Don’t you think Kageyama’s been a bit different lately?”

Akaashi sighs in defeat beside them as Ushijima considers this for a beat. Then, to Kageyama’s surprise, he says bluntly, “Yes.”

“Ha!” Bokuto swivels around to throw Akaashi a triumphant grin. “ _Ha_!”

“Both of you think so?” Tobio says, mystified. “But _how_ am I different?” And then, a little tensely: “Is it – ah – bad different or good different?” 

“You’re much easier to work with,” Ushijima says frankly (and Bokuto chortles at his candidness). “It certainly feels like we’re meshing better.”

“Like I said. You’ve mellowed out,” Bokuto repeats, confidently. “It’s _good_ different, Kageyama, stop looking so strung out.”

“You, on the other hand, are far too hyper today,” Ushijima tells the madly grinning actor solemnly, and Bokuto immediately begins squawking out a string of protests, the debate about Tobio’s apparent transformation instantly forgotten. Tobio’s just lifting his coffee cup back up to his lips when Akaashi nudges his shoulder discreetly, keeping one wary eye fixed on Bokuto’s indignant flapping about.

“You do look like you’re enjoying yourself a bit more,” Akaashi says quietly. His eyes flit across Tobio’s face, a quick, searching once-over. “Are you?”

“I – yeah,” he says, before it even really registers in his own brain. Feeling oddly exposed, he glances at Akaashi a little self-consciously, and is met by a tiny smile.

“That’s good,” Akaashi nods. “You’re allowed to have fun with it, Kageyama.”

And he _is_ , he realises, as he’s finishing up a scene with Hinata the next morning. He _is_ having fun with it. A feeling of unparalleled power surges all the way to his fingertips and toes every time he pulls off a tricky take with Hinata, in a way he’s never quite experienced before. He’s felt satisfied about his own good performances before, yes. But he’s never felt quite this keenly _commanding_ – despite the fact that he’s the one adjusting to accommodate Hinata’s heedlessly ever-changing flux – no, not ‘despite’ – perhaps _because_. He feels potent. He feels formidable.

Hinata snarks him with an obligatory jab before wandering off to join Sawamura by the water cooler. He’s done for the day, unlike Tobio. But he doesn’t seem to have any intention to leave immediately, unhurriedly chatting with Sawamura and Atsumu as he fills up his water bottle. When did he even get so friendly with the AD? Tobio doesn’t think he’s ever met anybody quite as obliviously, un-calculatingly sociable as Hinata (except, perhaps, Bokuto, though some would say he’s a bit of an acquired taste). He briefly wonders what it must be like to automatically become friends with everyone you meet. Honestly, it sounds a little exhausting.

“Hey, Kageyama.”

Hoshiumi appears at his side, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his silvery parka. Tobio tears his eyes away from the water cooler, feeling strangely like he’s been caught red-handed, and nods to greet the bundled-up actor beside him. “Oh, hey. Were you watching that last take?”

Hoshiumi tilts his head to one side, scrutinising him with wide, probing eyes. “I was.”

“And?” Tobio prompts.

Hoshiumi swivels his eyes over to the water cooler. “He’s good, isn’t he? He’s kinda interesting.”

Tobio says nothing, and Hoshiumi turns back to look at him, smiling broadly. “I’m better, though,” he adds matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, obviously,” Tobio says. “You’re you. He’s… Hinata.”

Hoshiumi just says “hmm” in a way that makes it impossible for Tobio to either read his tone implicitly or ask him directly to elaborate. There’s no time to pry, anyway, as Sugawara hurries up to him at this point to tell him he’s needed in wardrobe for some quick changes before his scene with Hoshiumi. And so he’s whisked away from the conversation, and given a different numbered volleyball jersey, and they fluff up his hair and brighten his cheeks until his reflection softens into one that looks a year or two younger, and then he’s being speedwalked back to the set with his script shoved in his hands and his own black parka ungracefully tossed over his shoulders.

It’s his first scene with Hoshiumi on this film – one of Kaneko’s memories of his ex Ito Marise, intended to mirror that first croquis drawing session with Amemiya they filmed a couple days ago. Hoshiumi’s taken off his parka and has a prop 35mm film camera hanging from his neck instead. He’s reading intently through handwritten notes in his own script, sitting at the bleachers. Just a few metres away, Hinata hovers behind him, laughably conspicuous, clearly shadowing Hoshiumi’s every move.

When they start rehearsal, it’s all almost too easy. Since the first time they worked together, Tobio and Hoshiumi have had excellent chemistry, and any remaining traces of rust fall away as they settle back into their usual dynamic. Hoshiumi has a perfectly evanescent smile mounted on his lips as he stands beside the net and photographs Tobio’s serves. Tobio keeps a juvenile exhilaration bubbling just below the surface of his lines and Hoshiumi almost prophetically controls the edges of its crests and troughs. Acting with Hoshiumi is the closest Tobio gets to acting unthinkingly – intuitively.

Kenma’s unsurprisingly pleased with their rehearsal and instructs the technical crew to prepare to roll. Hirugami comes to drape Hoshiumi’s parka around his shoulders and then ambles off to find him a hot drink, and Hoshiumi takes this opportunity to turn and survey Tobio, his arms crossed.

“Everything good?” Tobio says.

Hoshiumi’s eyes are again boring into him as though he can see into his very brain, and Tobio waits expressionlessly for him to speak. “We both know I’m better than him,” Hoshiumi says eventually, somewhat abruptly, though not necessarily cruelly, “but you’re different when you shoot with him.” His casual tone is belied by the obvious weightiness of his words. “With him, you’re exciting to watch.” He pauses. “Because you find him exciting.”

Tobio frowns. “I find you exciting too.”

“No, you don’t,” Hoshiumi huffs, “you find me talented. You find me easy to work with. You find _him_ exciting.”

“I’m… not sure what you mean,” Tobio says slowly, wondering when casual meta-analysis of actor-to-actor dynamics became such an everyday occurrence on this set.

Hoshiumi glances over his shoulder at Hinata, who’s still watching them from the bleachers but immediately pretends not to when they spot him. “Kinda like he’s a really, really complicated Lego set. Except the instruction sheet is missing and everyone else has bailed, but you’re still dying to put it together so you just try this and that and every time you figure out one part you get all buzzed.” He turns back to face Tobio straight-on. “That’s how you look at him when you’re shooting together.”

Tobio’s instinct is to deny it – somehow, the observation sounds massively incriminating – but finds he can’t quite bring himself to. He stares at Hoshiumi, somewhat stunned, as the vague, pixelated sense of power he’s been unthinkingly letting himself enjoy is pulled into sharp focus. But how can that be right? Hinata’s just… Hinata. How can that blundering stick of dynamite, ready to go off any second, be making _him_ more compelling to watch? And doesn’t that make Tobio the weird one for even finding him ‘exciting’, if that part’s true? He’s pretty sure people are supposed to be concerned about you if you start finding sticks of dynamite ‘exciting’.

“Right,” he says finally, his throat suddenly feeling dry. He swallows and very deliberately focusses on not looking over at the bleachers. “Well. If you say so.”

“Hmm,” Hoshiumi says again, and this time Tobio doesn’t even think he needs to ask him to elaborate at all.

  
  


* * *

“Picture is up! Quiet on set – roll camera!”

“Scene 21 – take 3. Sound speed!”

“Roll camera!”

“Speed!”

“Marker!” _Snap._

“And – action!”

Shouyou watches as Kageyama starts messing around with a volleyball, feigning offhandedness as he tosses it from one hand to the other. Hoshiumi teases him about showing off. Clearly flustered, Kageyama spikes the ball over the net, averting his gaze, and Hoshiumi brings his camera up to his eyes to catch him in motion. Kageyama catches him and makes a swipe for the camera – Hoshiumi jumps neatly out of the way, laughing.

This must be what Kageyama’s talking about when he goes on and on about ‘matching pace’, Shouyou thinks. He knows Kageyama’s worked with pretty much every other actor in this film before, but he and Hoshiumi seem particularly in tune with one another. Kageyama’s expertly navigating his way through all the scene’s complexities as usual but Hoshiumi’s also there to meet him – to complete his side of the equation so they’re filling up each moment in unison.

 _His_ scenes with Kageyama don’t feel like that. Their equation is mismatched – the niggling feeling’s been there for a while but he can see it right in front of him now. Tsukishima had been right: Kageyama’s letting him do whatever he wants in their scenes, but that doesn’t mean Shouyou’s actually the one in control of those scenes. Instead, Kageyama’s doing all the heavy lifting, perfectly engineering everything else about the scene to fill all the gaps Shouyou leaves behind. Basically – those home runs he’s been feeling like he’s hitting – they haven’t really been _his_.

It’s kind of a sucky realisation to have, and Shouyou becomes so totally occupied with it that he doesn’t even realise the take’s ended until Yachi’s approached him. “I’m surprised you’re still here! Weren’t you done in the morning?”

They’ve been able to have a couple of brief chats here and there whenever they’ve bumped into one another on set, but Yachi’s usually way too busy to properly talk. Shouyou gives her a quick smile. “I wanted to watch Hoshiumi in action.”

“Oh! Yeah, he’s amazing,” Yachi says reverently. “Although – personally – I prefer watching your scenes with Kageyama better.”

Shouyou laughs. “Thanks for the boost.”

“I’m serious!” She rocks forward slightly onto the balls of her feet, stretching her arms out behind her, looking out at the bustling set. “I really like to watch Oikawa’s scenes, too, actually.”

“Yeah? How come?”

Yachi’s hums. “Well – I mean – I don’t really know the first thing about acting, but… when you watch him between takes, how he makes those tiny changes, I feel like you can see how much he’s thinking about every little thing. Like he’ll hold a smile for, say, one more second, or he’ll take just slightly faster steps walking in… you know? And it doesn’t just make _him_ better, I feel like the other actors could just be doing the exact same thing the second time around, but he somehow makes them _all_ look better.” She turns wondering eyes onto Shouyou. “Does any of that actually make sense from an actor’s perspective, or am I just making stuff up?”

“No, yeah, it does,” Shouyou says, after half a beat of delay. He hasn’t really thought about it that way before, but Oikawa certainly asks him a lot of questions between takes. What emotions he’s going through when he delivers _this_ line, how he feels about someone when he delivers _that_ one, stuff like that. And Shouyou can give him whatever gibberish answer he likes – Oikawa unfailingly tells him, “okay, got it”, and the next take the whole thing just fits together a little better. It’s never a crazy change, and it’s not like the scene comes alive electrified like with Kageyama, but it does always somehow feel more… complete.

 _Thinking_. They’re all doing it, even though it might be in their own way. Kageyama, Hoshiumi, Oikawa – they’re all thinking _hard_ , constantly, no matter how experienced or accomplished or talented they are. Suddenly, Shouyou feels more like a sore thumb on this project than he has before.

“Hinata? You okay?” Yachi asks cautiously, waving a hand in front of his face. “You kind of zoned out for a minute.”

“Oh – yeah.” Shouyou gives her a reassuring grin. “Just… thinking.” He spots Daichi walking over to them and quickly checks the time, sighing a little reluctantly. “Looks like I’m off. Good work today, Yachi!”

“You too,” she says cheerily, waving him off. “Hope the thinking works out.”

Daichi’s got all his things in a bag, and passes him tomorrow’s call sheet as they head towards the car. It doesn’t look like Shouyou’s needed – it’s the last day of filming at the gym before they move onto a different offsite location, and all of Amemiya’s gym scenes are done. A probably much-needed rest day, then. But—

“Can we come tomorrow?” he asks, as they seatbelt up. “If it’s okay with you.”

Daichi gives him a look of surprise and turns on the engine. “Tomorrow? You haven’t got any scenes tomorrow.”

“I know! I just want to watch.” Shouyou settles into his seat and scans over the call sheet again. Yeah, there are definitely scenes tomorrow he wants to see first hand. He might even bring along something to take notes in, he thinks. Maybe he’ll even talk to Kenma between takes to see if he has any observations like Yachi, though it might be a little harder to squeeze a proper conversation out of the quiet director.

“Sure, why not?” Daichi says, and Shouyou doesn’t miss the curious glance he gives him through the rearview mirror. “Nothing to lose from it, I suppose.”

“Exactly!” Shouyou says, already feeling a little thrill at the prospect of shadowing a whole day of filming. Now he knows he’s missing _something_ , all that’s left to do is to figure out what it is. And there’s no better place to do that than on set with some of the best actors of his generation, surely. If he can even absorb a fraction of what they’re doing, try it out, and get feedback _straight away_ from people like Kenma… “Nothing to lose at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay !! i restarted uni and am doing 2 degrees atm that don't really fit super neatly together, so my timetable is always a little odd and doesn't leave me nice long chunks to sit down and write :( BUT i think i'm getting into the swing of things so hopefully will be able to start updating a little more regularly again !!
> 
> in other news - i'm planning on maybe taking part in [hq week](https://haikyuuweek2020.tumblr.com/post/626564414525603840/welcome-to-haikyuu-week-hello-we-are-haikyuu) and doing oneshots for each day. i have some ideas for stuff i've been wanting to write for a while already, but if anyone has any prompts / headcanons / ideas they're happy for me to try writing please leave them either in a comment or come talk to me on [tumblr](https://haikyuuweek2020.tumblr.com/post/626564414525603840/welcome-to-haikyuu-week-hello-we-are-haikyuu) i am always wanting more friends ♡♡


	8. Skyfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INT. STUDIO B - EARLY MORNING.
> 
>  **HINATA**  
>  You have Kageyama's phone number, right?
> 
> _SUGAWARA gives him an amused look, his arms folded._
> 
> **SUGAWARA**  
>  Yes, of course. I'm his manager.
> 
>  **HINATA**  
>  Okay, cool! Can I borrow it?
> 
>  **SUGAWARA**  
>  Borrow… his phone number?

“You’ve been coming along a lot lately to shoots you’re not in, Shouyou.”

Shouyou looks up and smiles. Kenma stands in front of him with his hands tucked into the front pouch of a thick black hoodie. As the frosty weather deepens it seems he’s just opting for cosier and cosier hoodies rather than actually adding layers of jackets and parkas and coats like the rest of them – at this point it’s hard for Shouyou to imagine the director wearing anything _other_ than a hoodie.

“I’m taking notes,” Shouyou says, gesturing into the script in his lap. He’s currently seated cross-legged on a floor spot that gives him a great full view of the set: Kaneko’s dorm, complete with all the uni student essentials (clothes on the floor, textbooks that are very visibly unopened, a stack of energy drinks in one corner).

Kenma glances at the script curiously. “What for?”

“I’m not actually entirely sure yet,” Shouyou admits a little sheepishly. “I just felt like – well, I had this _feeling_ that I could be doing more. You know? So I’m trying to figure out exactly what that ‘more’ is.”

Nodding once, Kenma crouches down in front of him with his hands on his knees, peering more closely at the handwritten notes Shouyou has strewn between the lines of his script. “You’re following along with what we’re filming.” He points one of Ushijima’s lines, next to which Shouyou’s written ‘ _he looked like he wanted to say something else afterwards, but he just sighed instead_ '. “You’re taking notes on… what the actors are doing?”

“Basically! I figured I’d be learning from the best,” Shouyou says. “But if you have any game-changing advice, feel free to tell me outright!”

Kenma considers this for a moment, and then says, “Well, before you try and figure out what _more_ you should be doing – what do you think is _missing_ from your current performance?”

What’s missing from his acting right now? What’s that thing Kageyama always says? “…Control?” he suggests.

“That’s part of it,” Kenma agrees, “but it’s important to know what exactly the control’s needed for. I think it’s more to do with _gradation_.” At Shouyou’s confused expression, he hums to himself thoughtfully and says, “So I guess what I mean is, I think you should stop seeing yourself as just an on-or-off switch and more as having… like… an accelerator. A sliding scale.” He glances behind him at the set and seems to decide it’s time for him to head back, because he gets to his feet without waiting for Shouyou to reply. “Anyway, I think watching the others is a good idea. I’m sure you’ll gain a lot from it.”

“Thanks,” Shouyou says, and Kenma gives him a little smile over his shoulder as he shuffles away with his hands safely back in his front pocket.

An accelerator… Shouyou writes it down in the margin of his script and encircles it with tiny question marks. Turning to the first page of the scene they’re about to start rehearsing – a flashback scene with Ito and Kaneko in his dorm room – he settles into his seat a little more comfortably and watches the crew filter off set as Hoshiumi and Kageyama take their positions. Kageyama’s sitting on the bed with one leg pulled up to his chest and the other dangling off the edge, while Hoshiumi wanders around the room, looking curiously at Kaneko’s things one by one. Shouyou narrows his eyes in concentration and scoots a little closer.

“You’re really messy,” Hoshiumi says, amused. “I thought you’d be obsessively neat, or something.”

Kageyama’s body language screams _nervous_ – it’s the first time Kaneko’s let someone he’s interested in come into his dorm. But when he speaks, the nervousness only _barely_ shines through, simmering beneath the surface and painted over in a heavy coat of feigned insouciance. It’s Kageyama’s perfect balancing act: where Shouyou would just let everything spill over, Kageyama picks and chooses, and every other whirling emotion Kaneko’s experiencing is _just_ held back, in the way water gathers and clings to itself at the top of a glass full to the brim.

Shouyou barely comprehends the words of his line. His tone, however, he hears in sharp high-definition.

They do a couple more rehearsals before the cameras start rolling, and Hoshiumi and Kageyama nail it in two takes. Then, while Yamaguchi and Aone get to work shifting their cameras to grab a different angle, Hoshiumi goes to get his hair fixed up by Inuoka at the side of the set and Kageyama… Kageyama, strangely enough, beelines straight for Shouyou.

“This is the third time in the past week you’ve turned up when you’re not on the call sheet,” he says accusingly. Sugawara’s thrown a colourful puffer jacket over his shoulders and it shaves the sharpness off the edge of his glower – he looks a little like a Club Penguin avatar. The tip of his nose has gone kind of pink from the cold, too.

Shouyou swallows down a giggle. “Hello to you, too, Kageyama.”

“What are you up to?” Kageyama says suspiciously, crossing his arms. 

“Well, you see, this is how we peasants who aren’t natural-born geniuses do this thing called _developing_ and _improving_ ,” Shouyou tells him seriously, and snickers at Kageyama’s eye-roll in response.

“As if I don’t have to develop or improve,” he snaps. “Don’t be stupid. Let me see, then.”

He holds out a hand, just like Kaneko had to demand Amemiya’s sketchbook. Shouyou passes his script over and braces himself to be yelled at, ready to stubbornly defend his ‘dumbass’ notes from Kageyama’s ruthless judgment.

Kageyama’s eyes flit down the page, and then he flicks through the rest of the script, pausing to read the notes on the scenes Shouyou’s shadowed over the past week. After a while he proffers the script for Shouyou to take back with not a single yell of criticism, to Shouyou’s wary surprise.

“I don’t really know how those notes are supposed to help, but I guess if you think it’ll work for you,” is all Kageyama says.

Shouyou bristles. “Bit rich coming from you, Mr Milk Box,” he grouses.

“Those notes _do_ help me.”

“How on Earth do they help?!”

Kageyama shrugs. “When I imagine how the lines should be said in my head, I guess I kind of associate them with different things. Like the feeling you get when you’re in school and you’ve just finished up on a really hot day and you get a milk box from the vending machine and take your first sip.”

Shouyou gapes at him in bemusement, and Kageyama glares in return. “I said they help _me_ ,” he says, almost defensively. “I obviously think about other things when I’m actually doing it. Obviously.”

Deciding it’s probably best for both of them if he drops the milk box thing at this point, Shouyou latches onto his last statement instead. “Like what?”

“Why am I even bothering to tell you this?” Kageyama grumbles, but he goes on nonetheless. “Like… a grid. One axis is all the things I’d be feeling.”

There’s another axis besides that?! “And?” Shouyou prompts.

“And the other is how much of each feeling I’m actually gonna let show.”

“You…” Shouyou’s honestly just surprised Kageyama can fit that many thoughts in his head, given he doesn’t seem like the smartest person ever. Not that he can really say much, but still. “…you plan all of that in advance? And then actually do it all like you planned?!”

“Usually.”

“What do you mean, ‘usually’?”

“Well, when I do scenes with _you_ , it’s—” Kageyama suddenly cuts himself off; his eyes meet Shouyou’s briefly, and then hastily dart away. He shakes his head. “Nothing. Yeah, I do it like I planned.”

Shouyou blinks. “Oh. Okay.” Anyway: “That’s pretty helpful, Kageyama. Surprisingly.”

“What do you mean ‘surprisingly’, you dumbass! I’m good!”

“I’m just saying you’re kinda bad at putting it into words usually, that’s all!” Shouyou amends quickly. Kageyama still looks a little miffed, so Shouyou adds in a mumble, “…Thanks.”

This time, it’s Kageyama’s turn to look surprised. But it barely registers on his face before he quickly sets his expression back into one of casual indifference. “…Whatever.” Clearing his throat a little self-consciously, he takes a backwards step away from Shouyou. “I’m gonna… they probably need to touch up my makeup.”

Shouyou nods, happy to go along with the excuse so both of them can escape this rapidly mounting awkwardness. “Um, yeah. See you later, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says quickly, and then swivels on his heel and hurries away.

When Shouyou returns the next day so they can film some of Amemiya and Kaneko’s day outings around the city, they both largely pretend yesterday didn’t happen, though Shouyou does notice that Kageyama explains his thoughts on each scene in a little more detail when they’re huddled around a script with Kenma for rehearsal. Whether that’s actually for Shouyou’s benefit he’s not totally sure, but he figures he’ll happily take the benefits of it anyway, listening carefully and taking mental notes.

Of course, there’s a difference between understanding it vaguely in principle and actually enacting some kind of change in his line delivery, and for the most part all of his scenes feel the same. Neither Kageyama nor Kenma express any particular complaints, so Shouyou keeps doing what he’s been doing, but the niggling feeling that something’s still not quite complete remains like an itch he can’t scratch in the back of his mind. In between takes he grills Kageyama for more tips – and though the vast majority of them are totally unhelpful idiosyncrasies that only Kageyama’s brain could understand, there are little nuggets of potential wisdom hidden here and there if Shouyou digs. Digs a _lot_.

An inadvertent side effect of all of this, of course, is that Shouyou spends a lot more time with Kageyama on set. Sugawara and Daichi sometimes join in for their chats, but mostly leave them to it – the two seem to have befriended the rest of the cast’s managers and seem to prefer hanging out with them when they get the chance (“We mostly just bitch about how you’re all whiny, high-maintenance drama queens who’d probably drop dead the second you had to function without us,” Daichi says dryly when Shouyou asks once, and Sugawara chokes back a laugh).

What Shouyou has discovered as a result of all the time spent with Kageyama is this: the guy is cranky and horrible at expressing himself, yes, but he’s probably not so much an actual menace as he is _painfully_ socially inept. He blusters his way through a strangely scary-sounding ‘thank you’ when Suna pauses on his way past them to compliment how they’ve done his hair that day, and Shouyou’s witnessed multiple occasions when he fails to catch onto one of Atsumu’s jokes and just sort of blinks at him in earnest puzzlement, prompting the AD to cover for the resulting awkwardness with a hasty, “Never mind.” Once, Yachi had bumped into his shoulder as she hurried to go speak to Sakusa on the other side of the set, and he’d turned such a sinister expression on her that she’d squeaked out a terrified “I’m so sorry!” as she stumbled away. Only after she was long gone did Kageyama turn to Shouyou and ask, one-hundred-percent genuinely, why she’d looked so scared.

And so somewhere along the line Kageyama stops spending their lunch breaks alone or trailing after Sugawara and instead with Shouyou, or staunchly hovering in whatever little group conversation Shouyou’s tucked himself into that day. He doesn’t get much better at actually _participating_ in the conversations, but he at least seems less prone to actively avoiding them all, much to the obvious delight of the other cast members. Bokuto in particular seems particularly thrilled by this development, dragging Kageyama over to the catering table to try each day’s new onigiri fillings with him, a task Kageyama takes on with an unexpected sort of serious rigour. Oikawa mentions in passing to Shouyou that Kageyama seems ‘moderately less allergic to people’ lately, and Shouyou feels strangely pleased at hearing it, as though Oikawa had complimented _him_.

Some of their busier filming days, though, leave very little spare time for them to be talking – they get whisked from set to wardrobe to makeup back to set then to the food table for a _super quick bite_ and then over to Kenma because he has some thoughts and then it’s time to be back on set again. Kageyama spends what little time they do have left on those days rehearsing his lines and going over his notes in the quietest corner he can find and Shouyou soon finds himself robbed of his walking, talking WikiHow article on acting. This, naturally, is what leads Shouyou to eventually acquire Kageyama’s phone number – by, er, slightly _guerrilla_ tactics, so to speak.

(“You look really nice today!” he chirped to Sugawara one morning.

Sugawara had blinked at him, glancing down at his own sweats and slightly worn jumper. “Um, thank you, Hinata, that’s very… sweet of you to say?”

“You’re welcome! Hey, um, you have Kageyama’s phone number, right?”

“Yes, of course.” Sugawara had grinned in obvious amusement. “I’m his manager.”

“Okay, cool! Can I borrow it?”

“Borrow… his phone number?”

“Yep! Just until I figure out how to do _gradation_.”

“Uh…” Looking slightly taken aback but mostly entertained, Sugawara had given him an indulgent sort of smile and held out his hand for Shouyou’s phone. “…Why not, I guess? I’m sure he won’t mind.”)

It turns out Kageyama thinks there _is_ rather a ‘why not’, and in fact _does_ mind, because the first time Shouyou texts him after they’re all home from a day of shooting – _when you did that really long pause today, what were you thinking about exactly?_ – all he gets is the irritable response of: _how did you get my number???_

It takes a fair few days of wheedling, and promises that this will mean Shouyou will annoy him less when they’re actually in the middle of filming, for Kageyama to cave and start giving him proper replies. They’re minimal at best, brusque and half-assed at worst, but they’re better than nothing. Shouyou transfers the texts into note-form in his script and tries to practise Kageyama’s lines like he would. Daichi catches him doing it in the car a few times and asks him why on Earth he’s rehearsing someone else’s part.

He’s just gotten a decently long reply about one of Kaneko’s scenes with his volleyball teammates that Shouyou had watched that day, when he randomly gets the urge to ask: _so how did you even start acting, anyway? Did you go to some film school for prodigy kids?_

Even before he’s finished pressing ‘send’ he already accepts the fact that Kageyama’s unlikely to respond, but figures there’s no real harm then anyway. The long reply from before had just made him think maybe Kageyama was in a good mood, and he wonders now whether a part of him had subconsciously seen it as an opportunity to just try and have a normal conversation with the usually less-than-sociable actor. He’s been feeling kind of bad about bugging Kageyama for advice even though they’re definitely nowhere near being classified as more than grudging acquaintances now, so maybe his friend-making instinct had just sort of… kicked in without him realising. Even though all of this is probably a silly thought that’ll lead nowhere, of course.

Such is his thought process that he’s genuinely startled by the _ping_ his phone makes a minute later. In fact he almost topples off the swivel chair he’d been lazily spinning around in. Grabbing the edge of his desk to still himself in the middle of a rotation, Shouyou opens his phone.

_No. I lived in the country, we didn’t have a 'prodigy film school'._

Shouyou grins, pleasantly surprised to find a point of commonality. _What!! Me too! Whereabouts?_

This time, the reply comes almost immediately: _Miyagi, in Tohoku._

He blinks. Seriously? Kageyama has no reason to be messing with him on this, but if that’s true, how had he not known until now? _No way_ , he types, _I grew up in Miyagi!_

Shouyou’s not precisely sure what he’s expecting in response this time, but it sure as hell isn’t a phone call, which is exactly what he gets. For a few stunned seconds he stares at his phone as it rings in his hand, the name lighting up the screen undeniable and yet seeming incredibly out of place. He only realises it’s still buzzing after the eighth ring, and fumbles to answer it. “…Hello?”

 _“There’s no way,”_ Kageyama says, repeating Shouyou’s reaction right back at him. _“No you didn’t.”_

“I did!” Shouyou exclaims. “My family still lives there. I go back every New Year’s and everything.”

Kageyama seems strangely adamant in his totally baseless denial of this. _“Then when did you move to Tokyo?”_

“When I started trying to take acting more seriously. I’m not making it up,” Shouyou insists. “Why would I even lie about where I lived?”

There’s a brief silence, and then Kageyama says slowly, _“…Didn’t people try to stop you?”_

Shouyou frowns at the sudden turn in the conversation. “Not really? I mean, I was basically an adult when I moved here, so there wasn’t much they could do. My family was kind of worried, but otherwise I’d say no one really cared.” He fiddles with the drawstrings of his hoodie distractedly. “Why?”

Kageyama takes another moment to reply. When he does, his voice sounds sort of odd, though any subtleties in his tone are lost in the gravel of the phone speaker and pretty much unreadable. _“…I was six when I did my first film. And then we had offers from management companies coming in when I was barely halfway through primary school… my family got a lot of flack when they decided to relocate us to Tokyo to support me. Saying no one from Miyagi would ever actually make it big, that we were throwing away the chance for my sister and me to just set up a nice, quiet, stable life in the area…”_ His voice trails off, as though he’s lost in thought. _“…I didn’t know anybody else around me who seriously wanted to be an actor. Let alone anyone my age.”_

Ah. Shouyou thinks he gets it now. He makes another full rotation in his chair and hums. “Well, I guess if I’d met you then I wouldn’t have been much help,” he muses. “I didn’t know I wanted to act until I was way older.”

Kageyama makes a sort of grunting noise. _“Right.”_ And then, after a beat: _“…Still.”_

Shouyou grins. “Yeah. And – you know – maybe I would’ve picked up the dream a bit earlier if I’d met a kid my age who wouldn’t shut up about acting.”

 _“I wasn’t – ugh, you dumbass,”_ Kageyama says, and Shouyou can practically see him huffing and rolling his eyes through the phone. His grin widens despite himself as he only now fully registers that this might be the longest Kageyama’s talked to him about something other than their film or something wrong with Shouyou’s acting. This is _personal_ stuff. This is stuff you’d say to your _friends_ , surely. Right? He wonders who Kageyama normally says this stuff to – he doesn’t exactly seem like the type to have a particularly large social circle. Maybe Kuroo? He’s seen the two of them chatting a bit when they’re all breaking for lunch.

Deciding to push what seems like his abnormally good luck today, Shouyou says, “You seem like you know the producer pretty well.”

 _“Hm? Oh, Kuroo?”_ Kageyama snorts and says sourly, _“That guy just loves to annoy me.”_

Shouyou laughs and moves from his chair to the bed, throwing himself amongst the pillows with vigour. _Much_ more comfortable. “Of course you’d say so. I know you’re just acting like you don’t care at all, but I bet you two are really close.”

Kageyama sounds irked at the very suggestion. _“Since when are you an expert in all of my relationships?”_

“It’s pretty obvious your cold-guy demeanour is just that, Kageyama,” Shouyou chortles, “a demeanour. Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you. I won’t tell the papers you’re actually a huge softie who sends his co-stars acting advice over text message and gives all the onigiri fillings at lunch every day a score with his own made-up marking rubric.”

_“I’m not a ‘softie’, what does that even mean?”_

“All you need to know is that it’s accurate.” Shouyou rolls over onto his stomach, rubbing his feet together to warm them up. “So – seriously – Kuroo. When did you work with him before?”

The _whoosh_ of Kageyama’s sigh comes through the phone, as though to tell Shouyou how much he’s suffering through his conversation. Well, it’s not really Kageyama if he doesn’t remind Shouyou how annoying he is at least four or five times a day. At this point it’s honestly a part of their daily routine.

But – even though his voice is tinny and blunt – he still starts to reply. This time, Shouyou finds, it’s not so shocking at all.

* * *

Tobio doesn’t realise he’s started looking for Hinata when he arrives on set until he finds himself asking Kuroo one morning, “Where’s Hinata?”

Kuroo gives him an odd look. “He doesn’t have any scenes today. Didn’t you see the call sheet?”

“Yeah, but…” Not even sure what he wants to say next, Tobio shrugs, feeling weirdly embarrassed. “Never mind.”

“I think he mentioned at the end of filming yesterday that he feels like he’s figured something out,” Kenma pipes up from beside Kuroo, apparently having been listening in on the conversation. “Says he wants to try putting it in practice now. I think he’s rehearsing with his manager.”

“Oh,” Tobio says, a little put out that he hasn’t been told about this development. _He’s_ the one who Hinata’s been pestering with acting questions every night. Shouldn’t he get the updates too, then? Though he knows rationally it doesn’t _really_ affect him. Before he can stop to think about it, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and shoots off a quick text asking Hinata why he’s not shadowing them on set today, hoping it doesn’t sound too much like he’s probing. He’s just curious because he’s been on the receiving end of all the questions – that’s all.

“Ready to go?” Kenma says, and Tobio nods, pocketing his phone and opening his script instead.

When they finish their first lot of filming for the morning, he immediately scans the room for Suga and hurries over when he spots him. His manager’s holding all of his things as usual – jacket, water bottle, phone.

“Any messages for me?” he asks nonchalantly, and Suga gives him a knowing look before wordlessly passing him his phone. Tobio immediately turns it on and scrolls through the notifications littering his lock screen.

_Think I might have something!!!! Can’t explain over text!! Come by to Karasu when you’re done filming!!_

He only catches himself grinning when he turns off the phone again and spots his reflection in the black screen. When he looks up, Suga’s mirroring his grin, though the manager’s is decidedly more amused. “Good news?”

The news has certainly given rise to an unanticipated sense of satisfaction within him. “You could say. Can we stop by Karasu later?”

“Yeah, sure. I have to chat to Shimizu about something anyway.” Suga glances over Tobio’s shoulder. “Hey, looks like Inuoka needs you back. Off you go.”

Despite his mounting sense of anticipation, Tobio manages to pull off the rest of the day’s scenes unimpaired, and Suga congratulates him on a job well done as they walk over to the car together. Throughout the drive to Karasu Tobio’s curiosity only continues to sprout in the back of his mind as he reviews tomorrow’s schedule with Suga. They split up once they get in the lift together – Suga gets off on the second floor to head to Shimizu’s office, while Tobio heads up to the third floor, assuming that’s where Hinata will be. Sure enough, as soon as he steps off the lift he sees light spilling out of one of the rehearsal spaces and heads straight for it, rapping on the door twice and then pushing it open without waiting for a response.

Hinata turns to look at him as he steps inside. He’s stood a little way away from the full-length mirrors that line one of the walls of the room, his script clutched in one hand. “Hey! You made it,” he says, beaming.

“Yeah, we came straight from filming,” Tobio answers at once, and seriously, _when_ did they get to the point where this exchange doesn’t feel abnormal at all? Later – he’ll think about that later. “So?”

“Gradation,” Hinata says, gratefully not beating around the bush. “I googled it – it’s like what Yachi has on her fingernails. Have you noticed them? They go from, like, pink to purple to light blue to dark blue.”

Tobio stares at him. “Uh.”

“Of course you haven’t,” Hinata harrumphs. “Anyway, I was wondering what Kenma meant by that, because it seemed more of an art thing than an acting thing. But then I remembered what you said about your grid, too. And then I looked over everything I’d written down from watching the others and it all just sort of _clicked_.” His eyes look almost amber in the artificially golden light, glowing with his usual exuberance. “I’m always just being either pink or dark blue, but I _should_ be trying to be purple or light blue. Like – when I do a scene, it’s like I pick up all of these paint tubes and just—” He squeezes his hands tightly around his script in demonstration. “—like this. And all of them explode everywhere. But if I squeeze out just a _tiny_ bit of, say, yellow, and a lot more blue, and maybe a dash of white or something, the colour I get in the end would be _way_ less messy. You get it?”

Tobio doesn’t ‘get it’ at all. It sounds both very complicated and very vague. He doesn’t say anything.

Hinata takes a breath, slows himself down. “Everything I feel when I do a scene,” he says, in a slightly more level tone, “everything Amemiya feels. I’ve just been switching _all_ of it _all_ the way on. But I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m going to _think_ and pick and choose and stuff. You were right after all, Kageyama!”

Inexplicably, Tobio’s seized by a looming sense of foreboding at the declaration. _No._ Hinata can’t stop doing that thing _now_ – that thing where he douses the entire scene in gasoline and lights it up. Tobio’s only just figured out how to work with that, how to bounce off it properly, and to be honest it feels impossible to imagine it any other way at this point. What if Hinata’s attempt just means he totally snuffs out his own insane energy? Sure, it’s a little uncontrollable, but it’s his best – maybe only – weapon as an actor. And with Tobio with him, the uncontrollable part barely matters now anyway. It’s been good. _They’ve_ been good.

So what comes out of Tobio’s mouth is this: “But… why?”

Hinata’s smile fades. “What do you mean, why? I thought you were on board with me changing something.”

“Yeah, well, I thought you meant just slowing down your lines or toning up your expressions a bit or something, not doing a total overhaul!”

“I… I _told_ you.” Hinata’s looking slightly dumbfounded now, and his hand holding the script hangs limply by his side, forgotten. “I told you I wanted to control it better—”

Tobio grits his teeth. “I can do that _for_ you.”

“But I don’t _want_ you to!”

“But it’s _working_ , isn’t it?” Frustrated, Tobio strides towards him, and Hinata stumbles away slightly, still with that stupid nonplussed expression on his face. Like he really has no clue why this is a bad idea. “We’re midway through filming. You want to suddenly change your approach to acting _completely_? Think about it properly for a second! You’re being irrational!”

“Why are you getting so _angry_?” Hinata bursts out, and Tobio forces himself to back off a little, breathing heavily. He doesn’t even know how to piece together an answer – but then realises he doesn’t need to. As he stands there panting, he watches as Hinata’s expression changes all on its own before his very eyes, morph from perplexity to dawning comprehension to a sort of stunned look of betrayal, all in the space of a handful of seconds.

Then, Hinata speaks. “…You don’t think I can do it.”

Tobio rakes a hand through his hair, feeling incredibly on edge. “I don’t think you _need_ to.”

“You don’t think I can do it,” Hinata repeats, as though he hadn’t even heard Tobio speak. “You think I’ll mess it up, and then I won’t be able to do the scenes properly, and I’ll ruin the film – you think I’ll ruin _your_ film, and then everyone will give you bad reviews and you won’t win any awards and people won’t think you’re a genius anymore.” His words are stumbling into one another, accelerating almost beyond his control.

“I never said that,” Tobio grinds out, feeling slightly hurt by the assertion.

“But you know what, _Kageyama_?” Hinata ignores his interjection entirely, his eyes blazing now. Tobio realises his shoulders are shaking slightly. “Some of us have _never_ been called a genius, and probably never will. So we have to find our own ways to keep up with people like you. If I sit back and let you cover for my mistakes, you’ll keep soaring on ahead and I’ll just be stuck here – maybe forever. I know you’re really bad at stuff like this, but don’t you _get that_? Don’t you get that this is _important_ to me?!”

Tobio feels as though several shards of glass have lodged themselves in his throat. He tries to speak, but finds his vocal cords clutch helplessly, as though forbidding him from adding any further fuel to this utter shitstorm of a situation he’s gotten himself into. He and Hinata just stare at one another for a long, razor-edged moment, and then Hinata’s shoulders – which had still been shaking just a second earlier – suddenly slump. He doesn’t drop his gaze, but all of the barely contained fury seems to cascade out of him instantaneously.

“You were helping me.” His voice is small now, and the shards of glass in Tobio’s throat crack. “I thought maybe… I thought you’d be excited.”

Before Tobio can say anything, the door to the rehearsal room opens behind him, and they both tense as someone walks in. Tobio whirls around in vexation to see a slightly surprised-looking Sawamura standing in the doorway with a grocery bag full of snacks in one hand and a tray holding what looks like two hot chocolates in the other. Sawamura’s eyes flick between them and it seemingly only takes him half a second to realise that something is amiss.

“Hi, both of you,” he says mildly, putting down the grocery bag. “Everything good in here?”

“Everything is just great,” Hinata snaps, shoving his way past Tobio and snatching the grocery bag off the floor where Sawamura’s placed it. He’s gripping it so hard that his knuckles look white even from a distance. “I think I’m done for the day after all, Daichi. Let’s go.”

“Oh, erm, okay,” Sawamura says, propping the door open so Hinata can storm out, not even turning around to acknowledge Kageyama as he disappears into the corridor. Sawamura’s eyebrows have soared almost into his hairline. He meets Tobio's eyes in the mirror and offers him a rueful half-smile. “Guess I’ll see you, then, Kageyama.”

He lets the door close behind him as he hurries off to catch up to Hinata. It shuts with a resounding slam, leaving Tobio standing alone staring at himself in the wall of mirrors, wondering what on Earth just happened, and why – even though he knows he _can’t_ have – he feels as though he might have just messed everything up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *slides you some plot development* so i heard you've been waiting too long for this… 
> 
> i wanted to post an update before i start intensively writing some oneshots for haikyuu week – day 7 of which, incidentally, will bring with it the next update of this fic. so i hope you enjoyed this marginally longer update, and i'll see you on october 1st - or earlier if you come by and read my other stuff for hq week !! which will deadass make me cry tears of joy (⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝)


	9. Into the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> INT. STUDIO B - MID-MORNING.
> 
>  **OIKAWA**  
>  Just talk to him, will you? You're  
> both dense as bricks and horrible  
> at reading signals, so please. For  
> the love of God. _Communicate._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _DAY 7: FLY (Oct 1st)_  
>  ☞ **A. Free Choice!**  
>  and to end off what has been an absolutely delightful hq week (seriously thank u so much for the love) - an actually on-time update !!
> 
> fair warning: this one is a little heavy on the movie scene descriptions / dialogue, but i promise those are almost done with. i just felt it was important to tie things together after the (ahem) slight disagreement at the end of ch 8. i'm really really excited for the next few chapters though, so i hope you'll stick this one out with me !!!!
> 
> (film character recap - hinata plays **amemiya hiroki** ; kags plays **kaneko aito** ; oikawa plays upperclassman **masaki rui** ; hoshiumi plays kaneko's ex, **ito marise** ; bokuto & ushi play kaneko's teammates; alisa plays their team manager.)

“You know, I didn’t think it was possible with you, but you’re off-form today.”

Tobio looks up from the open script in his lap sharply, letting his pencil roll into its gutter. “What? How so?”

“I’m sure you already know better than I do.” Oikawa’s sipping on an iced coffee (in this weather, the freak of a man) while they wait for the crew to finish preparing in the wake of their rehearsal. “But I could see you thinking – about what you were doing and saying and when you were breathing and everything. Usually it just doesn’t show at all.”

Tobio’s head whirls as Oikawa’s observation sinks its nails right into the uneasy trepidation he’s been cradling since the moment his head left the pillow that morning. Yeah, he knows something is off. He’d just hoped – because they weren’t actually shooting with _that guy_ until later – that he’d be able to keep it together for his morning scenes with everyone else, and then this inexplicable feeling of discomfiture would fade by the time the evening’s shoots rolled around. But is it really that noticeable? Why didn’t Kenma say anything after the rehearsal? How is he going to fix it when the cameras start rolling in five minutes? He can’t quite believe he’s actually letting something affect his performance like this – and, of all things, something as ridiculous as a petty fight with _Hinata_.

“Oh my God. Stop freaking out.” Oikawa rolls his eyes and continues absently scrolling through his phone, which is pinging nonstop with Twitter notifications. “I only noticed because I’m me. It wasn’t that bad or anything. You’re fine.” When Tobio still doesn’t answer, staring down a little blankly at his own knees, Oikawa’s eyes narrow, and he lowers his phone at last. “… _Are_ you fine?”

“Um,” says Tobio, hesitating. “I’m… I don’t know.” Then, steeling himself, he abruptly turns his head to face Oikawa again. “Can I ask you for some advice?”

“Would strongly prefer if you didn’t,” Oikawa says, with a long-suffering sigh. “But go ahead, I guess.”

“Okay. So, uh…” How does he even begin to explain this? “Let’s say… you were shooting with someone who’s – really difficult to work with. And you finally figure out how to make things work with them, but then they say they… want to try changing things up completely in the middle of principal. What would you do?”

Oikawa quirks an eyebrow at him. “Hinata wants to change his acting completely?” And then, when Tobio gapes at him in stunned silence, he says incredulously, “What, you seriously thought I wouldn’t know who that hypothetical was about? We’re literally in the middle of filming together, Tobio. Are you, like – _actually_ thick?”

“Okay, yes, it’s about Hinata,” he snaps, a little more irritably than he’d intended. “And he wants to start ‘thinking’ and fine-tuning that crazy energy he has. You know how tricky that was for us to get used to—” and with some difficulty, he forces himself to admit, “—for me in particular, maybe – and now he’s got it into his head that he wants to… I don’t know, control it himself or something.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Oikawa shrugs. “Why not?”

“Because!” Tobio blusters. “I’m already letting him do what feels good for him right now, and that’s hard enough to handle as is!”

Oikawa’s eyebrow climbs even further up his brow. “You’re _letting_ him?” he repeats.

Tobio falls silent, the reflexive protest dying on his lips. Oikawa considers him for a moment; Tobio fidgets under the shrewd scrutiny of his gaze, feeling oddly exposed.

“You’ve definitely changed for the better, you know, Tobio,” says Oikawa eventually, looking as though it pains him to acknowledge it. Tobio blinks at him in surprise as he continues, “But listen to yourself. You’re still dead set on having the last word, and dictating as much of the scene as you possibly can.” He points an accusing finger at Tobio, though it lacks any real malice. “If you insist on micromanaging everything, then of course Hinata won’t have the breathing room to try new things – new things that only seem impossible to you now because, yeah, you’re right. Hinata’s idea can’t work. Not unless _you_ accept that you might have to let go of the reins a little.”

Tobio stares at him wordlessly. His script sinks further into his lap.

Oikawa says, “You managing to control everything isn’t the only way we can shoot a successful scene, Tobio.”

_Because he’s such an egotistical, self-centred, megalomaniac king, that he tries to control everything about his films! Not just himself and his own acting, but you, and us, and anyone else who dares step foot on his precious set._

There is, all of a sudden, a strange lump in his throat. He swallows it down forcefully and looks away from Oikawa. The air feels too cold; it’s prickling at his skin, stinging his ears, icing the somewhat awkward silence that’s settled between them.

Unexpectedly, though, Oikawa breaks it unprompted. “So, I guess that addresses the acting side of things.” He stretches out his legs in front of him and yawns indifferently. “There’s something else, though, isn’t there?”

Is… there?

“Oh, come on,” Oikawa says, at the confusion that must register on his face. “I’ve seen you look frustrated, or angry, or annoyed or patronising or straight up _belligerent_ about an acting problem before, but… I’ve never seen you look this worried.”

 _Worry_. It’s an option he didn’t even consider when he was running through all the different possible names for this odd, thrumming emotion he’s been experiencing since their argument last night. But hearing it now, it fits far too easily for him to be able to really deny it: he’s feeling worried. But about what? That Hinata will mess up the film? No – he’s never really believed it would come to that, not if he has anything to do about it – so, then, it must be—

“I suppose I’m a bit worried that Hinata will still be upset with me,” he hears himself say, and then falters, the confession just as much of a revelation to him.

When he sneaks a glance beside him to gauge Oikawa’s reaction, he’s met by a look of unadulterated astonishment. But it’s there only for a fleeting moment; Oikawa seems to catch himself and hastily moulds his expression into something a little more impassive. “You guys had a fight, I’m assuming.”

“Of… sorts.”

“So that’s a yes.” Oikawa exhales with the air of someone who can scarcely believe the conversation they’re having. “And – so – I’m guessing Hinata was upset about you going all Dictator Mode on him, and not believing in him.”

“I never said I don’t believe in him,” Tobio corrects him quickly.

“No, just that you believe in yourself a lot more. Right?” Oikawa shoots him a wry smile and sucks the last of his iced coffee out of his cup as he gets to his feet. “Read between the lines, maybe, Tobio – though I suppose that’s a bit intellectually demanding for you. _Anyway_! I’ll be heading over first.” He starts to walk away, rattling the ice in his empty cup. He glances back only for long enough to call out to Tobio: “You owe me for this therapy session, by the way.”

What does he mean, _owe_ him, Tobio thinks a little reproachfully, watching Oikawa jump onto Iwaizumi’s back and receive a resounding smack around his head in response. Some therapy session. He feels like he’s ended up with more questions than he started out with.

* * *

The rest of the cast trickles in as he and Oikawa are finishing up their last take of their campus confrontation scene. Tobio’s not even sure things have improved much since rehearsal, but when he asks Kenma about it the director simply shrugs ambiguously and tells him it’s ‘working’, so he chugs through the lines stoically: _you know something about Marise. How do you know him?_ In reply comes Oikawa’s _I loved him first_ , spat out like venom. _He chose me_ , Tobio snaps, and Oikawa snarls into the end of his line _yeah, and you ruined him. You didn’t love him, you consumed him. It still kind of broke you, though… I’ll bet even_ you _couldn’t take going through something like that more than once…_

They make it through. He makes it through _what does this have to do with Hiroki – why did you send him to me_ ; through Oikawa’s acidic smile, the way he steps forward to hiss into his face _because I knew you’d take one look at him, and you’d do the whole fucking thing again_ ; through Kaneko’s lunge, his right hook, Masaki’s stumble; all the way through to _cut, take ten_ , and somehow, though his mind is racing the entire time, he’s made it through.

Oikawa’s whisked off to be fussed over by their special effects artist Daishou. He returns with a split lip trickling with blood. The set is silenced; the clapperboard snaps; they film the moment Kaneko punches Masaki again, and again, and again, from this angle and that angle while everyone else slowly reappears from wardrobe. Extras dressed as campus security drag them apart. He pants for breath. Oikawa’s lip curls. _Cut_ , comes Kenma’s voice, from somewhere very far away, _thanks, everyone._

Tobio immediately turns around to survey the rest of the cast, who are huddled at the edge of the set with long parkas thrown over their costumes, watching them shoot. There: right at the centre of them all, swaddled in scarves and chattering away to Alisa and Bokuto, he spies a shock of fluffy orange hair and overexcited hand gestures.

He is, as always, impossible to miss.

As though sensing something, Hinata glances his way – and then immediately averts his gaze. Tobio frowns. Is he still upset, after all? Are they ‘fighting’ then? Is he supposed to – apologise? But for what? 

“Just talk to him, will you?” Oikawa says from beside him, brushing himself off and dabbing absently at his bloody lip. “You’re both dense as bricks and horrible at reading signals, so please. For the love of God. _Communicate_.” On this last word he shoves Tobio a little in the direction of the huddle.

Staggering forward to right himself, Tobio sucks in a self-conscious little breath before approaching Hinata as nonchalantly as possible. The others immediately drop their conversations to greet him and he winces, wishing they weren’t all listening in. But pulling Hinata away from the crowd feels weirdly incriminating in its own right. This isn’t a big deal if he doesn’t make it a big deal.

“Um,” he says, “hey.”

Hinata’s eyes flick up to meet his. They’re unnervingly difficult to read. “Hey.”

“Er, are we…” No, that’s not right. He can’t ask it like that _here_. He can already feel Alisa’s curious gaze trained on them, and Hoshiumi’s watching like a hawk, too. “Are you… good?”

“I’m always good, Kageyama.” Hinata stuffs his hands in his pockets and turns his body so they’re standing completely parallel, Tobio staring down at him, Hinata looking defiantly back up, mulishly refusing to break eye contact. “Are _you_ good?”

As he’s about to answer, he feels a polite tap on his shoulder and turns around, coming face-to-face with Inuoka. “Sorry to bother,” he says cheerily, waving a powder brush in his face, “but can we do a quick costume-makeup touchup before the next scene?” 

Sighing in resignation, Tobio steps reluctantly away from Hinata. “Yeah, of course.” Can’t keep the powder pact waiting, now, can he?

But as he walks away he can feel Hinata’s eyes boring into his back with the same tingly stab of pins and needles at the bottom of your feet, and he still feels so _uncertain_ and the worry feels like it might’ve gotten worse, not better, and he’s not totally sure what Oikawa meant by ‘communicate’ but he’s pretty sure that wasn't it. He _has_ to say something before they start rehearsal, or he’ll be in even worse shape than this morning.

So he wracks his brain while Inuoka adjusts his costume. He wracks his brain while Kenma gathers the cast into a circle and talks them through his thoughts for the scene. He wracks his brain while they’re walking onto the set for the Dean’s office, while they’re shuffling into positions, while the crew is being shushed, and still, somehow, he comes up with absolutely _nothing_.

And then Hinata reaches out and grabs his arm.

“Kageyama,” he says, in a rush, before he pulls away to get into place, “I know we can do it.”

_Rehearsal for scene 94 – action!_

* * *

“So,” says Atsumu, coming to join him cross-legged on the floor, “wanna maybe tell me what’s going on here?”

Tobio doesn’t even move, sitting in stony silence with his script discarded beside him.

Apparently undeterred, Atsumu hums. “Alternatively, I could throw out some very random guesses and see what sticks. Breathe if I’m right, Tobio – you and Shouyou had a falling out.”

“Did you come to give me ‘therapy’ too?” Tobio mutters, not looking at him. “If you can’t _guarantee_ you won’t make things worse, I’m not listening.”

“Whoa, whoa, okay. Don’t stress, I’m not gonna push you to get all deep-and-meaningful with me.” A beat passes; then, a huffed little sigh. “But _come on_ , don’t you think we should at least talk about it a _bit_? I mean, no offence, but that was—”

A disaster, yes, he knows. But who wouldn’t have been caught off guard by that last-minute proclamation? And to make matters worse, after sending him whirling with _that_ , to then have the nerve to actually start experimenting in the rehearsal—!

They’d malfunctioned just as spectacularly as Tobio had expected. Hinata’s doing _something_ , that’s for sure, but it doesn’t even have a semblance of coherence. Tobio had prepared for an Amemiya bursting with Hinata’s skittish energy – distressed – _terrified_ at the sight of Kaneko with his screws pulled loose, fraught by the realisation that he’s become Ito Marise the Second, that it was all at the hands of an upperclassman he trusted. But it had taken just a few lines into rehearsal for it to become eminently clear that Hinata was doing nothing of the sort. His lines are delivered with a kind of foreign flatness and all the tricks, _all the tricks_ Tobio’s figured out to meet him in the middle, absolutely and thoroughly miss the mark.

They’re not in sync at all.

Kenma had called cut less than a quarter of the way through the scene. “Okay,” he’d said mildly, once they gathered in the middle of the set to talk. “What’s the problem?”

Tobio and Hinata had simultaneously said, “ _He_ is.”

The rest of the cast were none-too-discreetly exchanging inquisitive glances with one another; Bokuto had shifted his weight from one foot to the other, visibly uncomfortable. Tobio glared at Hinata.

“Drop it right now, while you can,” he’d warned him. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

Crimson anger had unfurled across Hinata’s cheeks and neck. Blinking rapidly, he turned his face away: “Kenma. Can we take a quick break? Sorry. I won’t be long.”

Which is how they’ve all ended up scattered across the set, ‘taking five’, with everyone very dutifully giving Tobio some much-needed personal space to breathe – except, of course, for Miya Atsumu, who seems to have no knowledge of the concept at all.

“I can’t help that he just hates working with me,” Tobio grouses, under his breath. “I told everyone from the start it wasn't a good idea to cast us both.”

Atsumu tilts his head closer as though he thinks he’s misheard. “Did you just say Shouyou _hates_ working with you? You don’t seriously think that’s still true at this point, do you?”

Eyeing him warily, Tobio says, “…So what if I do?”

“But—” Atsumu shakes his head in apparent bafflement, leaning back onto his hands and regarding Tobio as though he’s a newly-discovered, utterly incomprehensible organism of great fascination. “He calls you a genius, like, twice a day. Just because he still makes fun of you that doesn’t mean he hates working with you – wait, am I really having to spell this out right now? Why’ve you got that look on your face?”

Does Hinata really call him a genius that frequently? Maybe he does. Tobio hadn’t even noticed at the time because it’s become such a given fact of their conversations, but he thinks now that Hinata might’ve even said it last night in the middle of their argument, despite being completely caught up in the heat of the moment.

And he knows too that Hinata means it, because he always means what he says. That’s why he’d bugged Tobio with all those endless acting questions, surely – that’s why he always complains, somewhat oxymoronically, that Tobio can just do _anything_ he wants to do – and so then that must also be why he’d excitedly texted Tobio to come meet him in that rehearsal room yesterday, why he’d told Tobio and no one else about his plans to try something new, why he’d looked so wounded when Tobio had shut him down immediately.

What is it he’d said earlier, again?

_I know we can do it._

We. We – not I.

Feeling as though he’s been repeatedly driven over by several buses, Tobio turns to fix a stunned stare on Atsumu.

“Um,” says Atsumu. “Uh… you good?”

“Where’s Hinata right now?” Tobio says, abruptly.

“Right now? Um… oh, he’s with Kenma. Over there.”

Tobio scrabbles to get to his feet, leaving his script on the floor by Atsumu. “I have to go. Thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome,” says Atsumu, seeming largely unperturbed, “I think.”

There’s something ringing in his ears as he stalks towards Hinata – perhaps a little menacingly, judging by the way Yachi squeaks and yanks herself out of his way when they cross paths – and Kenma notices him approaching first when their eyes inadvertently meet over Hinata’s shoulder. He swiftly steps away from Hinata with a gentle pat on his arm. “I’ll be right back, Shouyou. Just have to go talk to Kuroo for a second.”

He slips away just as Tobio comes to a stop behind Hinata, reaching out to tap him on the shoulder before hesitating, his hand hovering mid-air. Hinata turns around as though sensing his presence regardless.

And maybe it’s something about the genuinely downcast expression on his face, beyond any mere anger or resentment; or the tension holding his entire frame squeezed together, with a kind of hungry frustration that is just _so_ characteristic of him; or, really, it might actually be the fact he still meets Tobio’s eyes rebelliously, the challenge never having left them even for a moment, because perhaps he still has faith – in the end – that Tobio will somehow come around.

Hinata _wasn’t_ ever just being stupid. He _hasn’t_ ever been under the delusion that he could pull off this new stunt on his own.

_I know we can…!_

“What,” Tobio says, his voice sounding far more composed than he feels, “what do you need me to do?”

Hinata blinks. For a moment, he looks as though he’s holding himself back from believing that he means it, apprehension crossing his face as he holds Tobio’s gaze. But then, from behind it, a slow smile spreads: it spreads and spreads until he’s beaming widely and the crestfallen fog has dissipated from his eyes.

“How about we go get some hot chocolate,” says Hinata, “and _then_ we can talk.”

* * *

“What do you reckon Kaneko’s feeling right now, Kageyama?” 

They’re outside, blowing on their hot chocolates in the late afternoon sun. Rehearsal’s supposed to resume in exactly six minutes – Suga had stopped them on their way out, making them promise they wouldn’t be too long.

“What, like after Masaki tells him everything?”

Hinata brings the cup away from his mouth. It leaves behind a hot-chocolate moustache on his upper lip. “Yeah. I mean, think about what he’s just been through, right? Masaki tells him – hey, you ruined Ito’s life, you made everybody pressure him to be your daily pill, he’s uncontactable in some other city now and I’m bitter about it, therefore I sent Amemiya to you so you’d mess everything up again and break yourself for good.” He recounts this all in a somewhat incongruously bright tone. “Then Kaneko goes for the punch, he gets dragged to the Dean’s office, everyone gets called for a crisis meeting of sorts, Kaneko storms out and bumps into Amemiya on his way in. So!” He turns promptly to face Tobio and holds out an invisible microphone under his chin. “ _What_ is Kaneko Aito feeling?”

Tobio knows exactly what Kaneko is feeling. It’s all there, in his notes: _ice shards, arteries of lava, drowning in salt water_. “Desperate,” he translates, for Hinata’s microphone. “Defensive.”

“Okay. And what do you think Amemiya’s feeling?”

 _Mouse under a microscope, teetering on a cliff-edge_. “Hunted and overwhelmed.”

Hinata grins at him. The sight brings Tobio a strange sense of relief. “Nope,” says Hinata, popping the word obnoxiously. “I kinda thought you might say that. But _my_ Amemiya is feeling angry. And hurt. That’s why I want him to seem really cold and disappointed that it’s come to this, all because Kaneko always thought of him as being whatever he needed him to be, and ignored every single hint that he wasn’t those things and never wanted to be. This _whoooole_ film, we've been seeing him as this super special, _super_ gentle, lifesaving fairy through Kaneko's eyes”—he sighs contentedly after a long sip of hot chocolate, sending a dragon's puff into the air—"but now I want everyone to see Amemiya Hiroki for who he actually is."

Genuinely bowled over by the fact that he’s been thinking _this_ hard about it on his own, Tobio manages to say, “Is that why… all those scenes we did together before, from the beginning. You were always – more intense than I envisioned him. Were you—?”

“We can’t all be geniuses, Kageyama,” Hinata says, nudging him with the side of his arm, “but I wasn’t ever just – like – blindly thrashing around, you know!”

Tobio stares at him. There is something akin to awe sweeping slowly, softly through him, and he wonders whether this is really the first time he’s felt it looking at Hinata, or simply the first time he’s recognised it. Inexplicably, the skin of his arm under the layers of costuming and padded jumpers tingles where they bumped together. Hinata’s chocolate-rimmed smile feels, all of a sudden, overwhelmingly blinding.

One minute now.

“We should go in,” he says, a little numbly.

“Yeah!” Hinata drains his hot chocolate and licks away the moustache at last. He crumples up his empty paper cup into a little ball, determination already etched back into his expression. “Come on, Kageyama,” he says, as he holds open the door for them, “let’s do this.”

And this time around, now that Tobio’s looking for it properly, he feels as though he can see it: the persistent frigidity with which Hinata delivers Amemiya’s final lines of the film, which Tobio had misjudged as flatness. The _I can’t be your reason to live, Aito!_ that he’d thought would be hurled at him full of distress, which instead sharply lacerates the air between them.

Hinata is bioluminescent and merciless. The reckless energy that used to spill into each breath of their scenes is carefully clipped in. And every uneven edge he almost-but-can’t-quite, Tobio sands down for him; every little drop that flows over, Tobio catches for him.

It feels good. It feels good to be back where they were.

No – it’s better now, Tobio thinks, as Kenma cuts the rehearsal and immediately tells the crew to prepare to shoot. It’s better, because Yamaguchi and Yachi are trying to inconspicuously blink away tears that at some point must have sprung into their eyes as they watched on, and because Oikawa is repeatedly mouthing a disgruntled _you owe me, Tobio_ as he goes to annoy Iwaizumi again, but _mostly_ it’s better because Hinata flashes him a triumphant grin now, like only the two of them share some secret lock and key to the scene.

“Told you,” he crows gleefully when he catches Tobio’s gaze. “Told you we could do it.”

Tobio bites down on the thrilled smile that’s threatening to make itself known on his face. The scrub doesn’t need more of a hyperactivity boost than he’s already just given himself. So – “yeah,” he says noncommittally, shoving his hands into his pockets to calm their traitorous tingling. “Yeah, I guess we really did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok guys now that the chapter's over we can't forget all the other important points of business on today's agenda:  
> 1\. i CANNOT believe cour 2 is finally gonna be here i'm screaming  
> 2\. that's it
> 
> [come scream with me](https://soeunaa.tumblr.com) maybe xx 👉👈


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